Surprise - We find one more ventilation shaft in the 25C tunnel ! This one is much smaller than the famous hole (that is located quite some distance uphill towards Khandala), not more than 2 meters across. From within the tunnel, one could see vegetation

In yet another rail top shot, Ashish stands in the light patch from the newly discovered vent hole in the 25C. He tries (unsuccessfully) to get a GPS fix through the hole to log the coordinates that would prove useful during the next Tunnel top trip. In t

Here is a view of the Jet Fan inside the 25C tunnel – actually we were standing below one while the 1007 Down Deccan Express came by. Our experience – the pin drop silence, the sudden gust of air rapidly exploding into a whirlwind, the thunder of the

Two transformers are located inside the 25C tunnel in caged refuges to power the jet fans and perhaps the lighting systems. The warning plate was originally meant for 22000 Volts, but one of the zeros has been scrapped off in both the English and Devnagar

The 25C tunnel Jet Fans are provided with Larsen & Toubro Soft Starter units model PM 12 to ensure that the motor starts gently while accelerating the rotor. The lamps on the panels were not lit, making us suspect that the Jet Fan system was not work

A retro-reflective Infra Red sensor on the tunnel wall is used to detect something – our local instrumentation expert opined that such a sensor cannot detect smoke level accurately, in any case the performance would degrade as soon as dust would accumul

A view of yet another type of retro-reflective Infra Red sensor in the tunnel 25C– a bulkier version many times the size of the first unit – this one was complemented on the other side of the tunnel wall by a equally huge reflector. The yellow spot is

The huge reflector, almost 300 mm square in size located on the opposite wall of the tunnel 25C from the bulky IR sensor.

The light patch from the famous vent shaft in the tunnel 25C – I stand on the Khandala side of the whole while Ashish walks with his lit torch making a yellow orb on the ground.

One thing this fella always does is to take notes – here is Ashish doing his obsessive compulsive activity below the second vent of the tunnel 25C. His torch is still lit, but in his pocket – how else would he wield the pen ?

There is enough light in the tunnel at this point to permit reasonable hand held shots – here is the massive vent shaft in the tunnel 25C. There was considerable

Out of the tunnel 25C – rushing to meet the 1130 hrs arrival of the 1029 down Koyna Express that would take us to Pune.

As we arrive back on the Khandala platform, triple WCG 2 bankers get ready to depart for Karjat.

And this guy gets the grandest view of the rolling ghats.

There exists a slot between the passage of 6529 down Udhyan and 1029 Koyna – one that is utilized by a climbing freighter. This is the first views of a WCG 2 as it arrives through the tunnel 25C onto the Khandala pf 1. Unfortunately this loco has switch