A loud whistle, the moment I am
waiting for. She approaches to my view point, I can see the smoke go up the sky
and chugging gets louder. I switch on the video record button and watch her
come close to me. A dream of seeing a live YP fulfilled, I watch the train till
it’s out of site. To relive the moment I turn back to my camera. The camera is
switched off, I just switched on the review button praying that the video is
recorded. This feeling was similar to what one gets when checking the exam
results online. The video starts playing, she comes again round the curve and
the video stops. It was one of the most painful feelings that I have had and I wake
up to complete darkness. Ohhh… That was one hell of a dream. I check my mobile
and time says its 3:45 hrs. It’s just 15 minutes from the place where I along
with 2 more friends have to get down. A look down from my berth gave me a
surprise. I can see people sleeping in awkward positions. This is the first
time I am traveling in a coach like this. The top section is a sleeper class
and the bottom section is a reserved sitting class. Somehow managing to reach
the door without disturbing my co passengers, I open the door. All I could see
was the moving lights along with me. I then wake up my friends so that they can
get ready. We approach a station and the board reads Surkimangela, a quick check
on the internet indicates that we are still 27km from the stop where we were
supposed to get down which means there is still 1 hour left. So we decide to
get back up to our berths. I started thinking how come a YP entered my dreams
and the answer was found within 10 minutes. Earlier in the day, we had seen a
steam tender lying next to the tracks which made us wonder how it would have
been if it had been alive now. I sleep off again to be woken up by the rumbling
sounds. We are crossing a bridge, I am able to see only girders and nothing
else and I release that we are crossing Narmada River which indicates that we
are within touching distance of our stop. The train comes to a halt and I along
with my friends get down, the surrounding are completely dark and we don’t see
a single person apart from us on the ground.
The Dark Station
A haunted location feeling, a
whistle goes off, the loco honks and the train moves. As each coaches passes I
get more curious to know the how the other side looks. The last coach passes
and we see a small building with a well-lit ground level platform. The train
takes a left turn and finally vanishes out of sight. The building has a small
ticket window and a place to sit, we decide to make this the base till
daylight. While my friends decide to take a quick nap, I decide to explore the
surrounding. I along with my camera start exploring the place. It’s very quiet
and not a single soul to be seen, it’s really difficult to see locations like
these inside the cities. It was pitch dark on one side and with 2 tiny lights
on the other side. I passed the next one hour in enjoying the pure silence of
the surroundings. Not often do you get to experience these kinds of moments.
The birds start chirping, the day light starts and I can see few locals moving
with a bottle in their hand. In the meantime my friends wake up and we get
ready to catch the King of the line – Satpura Express. With everything set we
wait to see the train curve in but Mother Nature had other ideas and she
blocked the complete view with fog. It was thick fog with visibility of around
100m. We started to hear the hard working loco and soon the headlights were
piercing through the thick fog. The train vanished quickly out of site. With
fog slowing clearing we decide to head to the bridge. Walking on tracks was bit
difficult due to moisture content and with some trouble we approached the
bridge and we were able to see 2 bridges in front of us. New Bridge on the left
for broad gauge and the narrow gauge bridge to the right.
The Bridge Experience
We soon jump onto the broad gauge
bridge to find a suitable spot for the next train which would arrive in some
time. The dogs and monkeys started following us, looked like they were worried
on seeing new people on their bridge. In the meantime the fog came back to
haunt us again, the clear view of the bridge was lost. The train came at 10 kph
and disappeared into the fog. The Fog started to clear again indicating a mixed
start to the day. The boats started to come out, birds made their way out and
finally a lot of moments on the broad gauge bridge. The local people are using
this bridge as their way across the river. Not sure how long they can do this
with the broad gauge line set to come up soon. We all started to feel insecure
on seeing a lot of cars at the end of the bridge and tractors coming with
loaded sand. We were also losing against our body as the hectic travel took its
toll on us. We finally made our way back to the station and on our way back we
were greeted by the Jabalpur passenger. The 2km walk back appeared too long now
and finally after some time we reach back to the base.
The Final Adventure
We met few railway men who were getting
ready to start their work. They informed us that tickets will be issued few
minutes before the train arrives. Time was around 8:30 and people started
coming in. The tickets too arrived and every one bought their tickets. Railways
generally provide the tickets to passenger via a private agency / localite. The
next 30 minutes were spent in checking the pictures and videos taken during the
day. It was almost 9 when the sounds of train were heard, everyone got ready
and so did we expecting a normal crowd. We wanted to enjoy the journey near the
door but a chance of getting into the train appeared too weak as the train
curved to the station. Wait a minute, i have not yet revealed the station name
and I should atleast do it now. It’s Jamtara Paraswara, Madhya Pradesh. The
train was a like a moving village with all the space inside occupied, only
space available was on the roof top. We decided to climb on top but we were not
able to find a way up and with just seconds remaining we squeeze in somehow.
The train starts and it was like I was stuck in forever. With each station
passing it was like a rebirth, after some time with some luck we got a seat
which was very unique. We were covered by all the sides and no one to disturb.
90% of the crowd got down at Howbagh Jabalpur. It was quite surprising to see
so many people using the trains here and wondering what is happening to them
with no trains around due to gauge conversion. After 10 minutes we move towards
the final destination, Jabalpur. This is one of kind experience which I can
never get back. Happy that I was able to do this before the line closed.
Jabalpur – Nainpur has been
closed for gauge conversion now. The trains running on this section has been
terminated from Nainpur. Hope you all liked it. A slideshow of this adventure
can be seen here
No comments:
Post a Comment