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.

Some railway hardware found on the permanent way – perhaps a rail mounting chair.

We sighted many examples of real wildlife during our trek. This is a Chinkara (Indian Gazelle) of genus Gazella Gazella Bennett – the shy, graceful and very fast moving animal can be seen on the path near the small tree in the centre of the image. This