Jaunt on the Satpuras
4 railfans (Benhur, Naveen, Harish and Raghu) set out on a 3 day ride on the Narrow Gauge line between Jabalpur and Nagpur covering all the 4 lines in the route.
Our humble attempt to share the sights and delights we experience during the recent trip to Central India and to those line where the trains never rip the tracks… but a gentle gallop through one of the finest landscape in the country… the lines that were built in total harmony with the nature... yes, it is those lovely NG lines between Nagpur and Jabalpur, which have celebrated their centennial not long ago.
The brief halt outside Nagarwar helped some quick business. Also note the gradient behind. (Naveen)
Dussera celebration at Nagarwara. (Benhur)
At Nagarwara, we crossed the Jabalpur bound 1BJ passenger hauled by ZDM-4A #232. (Harish Kumar)
Folks at BTC celebrating Dusherra with the religious flavor, and the railway men did give a cracking and boisterous tribute for our loco, which was decoupled and moving light. (Benhur)
The BG platform has the high-level platform that too at a higher topography. It is so high that one may be tempted to just hop on to the top of NG rake. Standing on the BG side for its 13.00 hours departure was 4 BGSE – BTC-Gondia. This is a nice connecti
The light loco that brought in the 0002 Satpura Express cautiously negotiates the Scissors crossing – Balaghat Junction. (Naveen)
That’s the end of NG at Balaghat and now we will return to 0001 for our last leg in the NG towards Jabalpur. The BG line proceeds towards Gondia Junction. (Benhur)
Some insights of the NG bogies. (Benhur)
Loco change at Nainpur: ZDM-3A #233 took charge of Satpura Express from Nainpur towards Jabalpur, even as others are oblivious to the impending change. (Benhur)
Satpura express negotiates a beautiful S curve at it climbs up the Ghats, somewhere near Pindrai (Benhur)
Somewhere in the ghats near Ghunsore, the train screeches to a halt and resumes within seconds. (Harish Kumar)
Happy Feet! (Naveen)
At kilometer 1149/15 our train reached the summit of the Balaghat – Jabalpur section that stands at 545 meters above MSL, and immediately we could feel the relief of the loco, as it began cruising. (Benhur)
Completing the NG Odyssey, in FC style. Raghu, Ben and Naveen relaxing inside the comforts of the FC coach. The first class coach is an all sofa affair, with two coupes. Each coupe has two sets of sofas placed opposite, and there is no overhead bunk to sl
Action time at Binaiki: All attentions for the token exchange, as Satpura ripped through the station. (Naveen)
Final crossing of the Trip at Shikhara: This station will be remembered for the refreshment stall which serves some of the best milk-based sweets, and other spicy stuff. Here we crossed the Nainpur bound passenger hauled by ZDM-3A #168. (Harish Kumar)
Howbagh Jabalpur at Night: Nagpur bound 2NNJ gets ready to be shunted into Jabalpur. The coaches were already full even before the train moves to the originating station. ZDM-4A #209 would haul 2NNJ into Jabalpur and then towards Nagpur. (Harish Kumar)
Finally our train rolled into Jabalpur station, at 19.30 hours, five minutes before time, and marked the completion of almost 55 hours of our sojourn in NG lines traversing 635 kilometers. We take immense pleasure in taking you through the journey. Thanks
Recent comments
Brilliant Album, I'm also planning to explore this route somewhere in January 2011, too charmed by your album...:-):-):-)
Posted by Kaushik Dharwadkar on 2010 Nov 28 17:21:23 +0000
The scenes shown here (in the photographs) are from a fairy land or from a fairy tale !!!
Thanks to the four railfans for doing this trip on NG and sharing the photographs - which should find a place in FIRST CLASS.
Posted by S. Srinivas on 2010 Nov 28 05:32:52 +0000
Brilliant album.....!
Posted by Chaitanya Gokhale on 2010 Nov 27 08:35:03 +0000