The Unseen Jewels of Bihar's Meter Gauge
In a mission to explore some rare MG sections of IR and specifically Bihar Sriskandh Subramanian, Akshay Subramanian & Trayambak visited Sakri a BG-MG junction north of Darbhanga in Bihar. We started from Sakri and stationed ourselves for sometime at Lohna Road and continued till Jhanjharpur where we capture Meter Gauge action for the rest of the day.
At Jhanjharpur a unique Rail/Road bridge awaited us which was spectacular in its own sense.
Prelude: Since we were arriving from Patna there was no overnighter from Patna to Darbhanga so we took Capital Express to Barauni and then switched over to 13185 SDAH-JYG Ganga Sagar Express. While we were waiting for our ride till Sakri this night action
We had arrived at Lohna road by an Autuo and then trekked to this spot. As we had just stationed ourselves near a viaduct a morning Service from Nirmali to Sakri arrives after crossing Lohna Road from Jhanjharpur (Trayambak Ojha)
After trekking for almost 2 kilometers we reached the first viaduct of the route from Sakri to Jhanjharpur. This was a concrete viaduct and was BG ready (Trayambak Ojha)
The MG train to Laukaha Bazaar appears at this small viaduct. After a long R&D by Akshay we landed at this second viaduct which preceded the previous one at a gap of approximately 200m. (Trayambak Ojha)
This small viaduct gave us ample angles and locations to capture the MG trains from different angles. seen here is the train at Noon over a dried up stream (Trayambak Ojha)
A Meter gauge service with a nice shiny blue livery from Narkatiaganj appears through the trees,palms and farms of Bihar (Trayambak Ojha)
The moment we hit the highway with the auto we had hired we rushed along and soon we were able to capture the train darting towards Sakri (Trayambak Ojha)
Chasing the train right from Jhanjharpur and many places enroute this was the shot which was missing from our camera and here it came with a smoke being belched to our joy. (Trayambak Ojha)
A closer look the loco which had bowled us totally. Such action will not be seen in future sadly as the BG work is going in full flow (Trayambak Ojha)
A battery of diesel MG locos and some with older liveried locos as well lying in the MG diesel loco shed at Jhanjharpur (Trayambak Ojha)
As we were waiting for the MG train to be captured along with the Khalasi waving the Green Flag. At that moment a strong dust storm arrived creating a different atmosphere (Trayambak Ojha)
As we had stationed ourselves at vantage points on the viaduct to capture the first train on the bridge, this handsome looking loco hauled MG train arrived with caution (Trayambak Ojha)
This is how the Rail-Road bridge at Jhanjharpur looks like. The viaduct looks in a very sorry state of affairs and seemed that it will collapse any moment. (Trayambak Ojha)
A wider view of the Jhanjharpur Rail/Road viaduct on the Kamala River as the afternoon service runs througha seemingly frail viaduct (Trayambak Ojha)
And here goes the last MG train we captured for the day at this unique and amazing viaduct at Jhanjharpur (Trayambak Ojha)