The forgotten railways of Pune’s backyard - part II

At last, I get a picture showing the actual process of the ball token being picked up. This is ironic, as only a few days are left for this section to become "token-less" due to the introduction of the panel interlocking and colour light signals

Pune's WDM2 # 17237 leaves Shindawane with the 1609A Pune - Satara passenger. 16th June 2007

PUNE WDM2 17237 makes a smoky start, while leading 1609A Pune -Satara passenger out of Shindavane station

As always, even a common garden variety of the WDM 2 makes the departure of an ordinary stopping passenger train into an exciting spectacle.

On the way to the tunnel in the mountains in the background, the wayside hamlet’s revered ancestors regard our progress. While not a strictly a railway pic, this is related to a railway related trek so may be justified in this folder.

Praveen from Hyderabad leading the trek to newly discovered tunnel. The embankment can be seen at about 30 % height of the mountain in the front and the tunnel is located to the right side near the weathered patch of rock approximately above Praveen’s h

Another view of area as we climb towards the embankment. The MG trains ran on these lines from approximately 1866 until around 1970.

Finally on the embankment and looking towards the tunnel. This is the view west of Shindawane, towards Pune.

An odd shaped rail structure at the eastern (Shindawane) end of the tunnel. We could not guess the function of this device.

Why do my buddies have such a cautious body language ? The answer lies in the sounds emanating from within the tunnel – a mix between low pitched drumming and sound of heavy water flow – topped by sharp screams – our presence has disturbed roosting

Ashish and John try to figure out an easy way of entering the tunnel. Most of the tunnels portals are obscured by mounds of rubble. Old timers who worked this line had told us to expect walls erected by the railways when the track was decommissioned to pr

We cautiously go inside - the place is pitch dark, our feeble torches just could not light up the tunnel interiors. An alternative name for this set of pictures is ‘S**t scared’ – the textured surface of the floor is a layer of bat guano that got st

On the top, and there it was - unguarded and massive, the ventilation shaft for the tunnel. The depth of the shaft can be judged from the earlier pictures that show the hill side above the embankment leading to the tunnel. Apart from the you folks on the

Another look at the ventilation shaft. A stone chucked into this abyss goes thunk, thunk .......................................................................

This is the best shot I could get without endangering myself. There is a piece of BG rail set in the inner walls that could have been used to anchor railway workers when they descended the depths of the ventilation shaft. I call on Lalam to provide me a l

A view at the end of the hill looking towards Pune. The MG alignment can be seen in the cuttings. Our earlier trek was until the last chain of the hills visible in this pic. Go through an overview of...

A view of the tunnel roof – the dark object in the center is the ventilation shaft. The brown objects on the roof are probably roosting bats. One of them guys is flying around, near the top of the picture. The white spots on the roof are the eyes of the

A view at the tunnel floor near the ventilation shaft – note the circular spot on the floor. This is probably made by rain mixing with the inches thick layer of bat guano – although it did smell as if another excretory liquid from our mammalian cousi

Approaching the massive ventilation shaft. The roosting bats have turned the rocks black (though I am not sure of the scientific reason why that happens…). Note the many flying bats – most of the white spots are the bat’s eyes.

A look directly overhead into the ventilation shaft. It is obvious that the shaft has been closed using some regular sized objects- perhaps railway sleepers. Thousands of headlamps stare at us as we stand is a pool of sticky, smelly stuff…The yellow blo

We leave the tunnel to trek back to the Shindawane station to catch our return ride, the 1610 Up passenger. This massive embankment can be seen east of the tunnel in this satellite image.