First Day First Show : Palani - Pollachi Broad Gauge

5 years ago, Palghat / Podanur - Dindigul meter gauge line was closed for gauge conversion. 3 years later the strech between Dindigul and Palani opened. 

9th January 2015 saw the opening of Palani - Pollachi section. I tired my best to cover the event. Pictures and video from the event can be seen below.

    02651 Palani - Pollachi Express with GOC WDM2A #16885 waits to start its journey from Palani.

   The first train on this route 06769 Pollachi - Palani Passenger with ED WDM3D #11103 arrives Palani.

          All the Level Crossing's along the route had people waiting for watch the train pass by..

                              The Old meter gauge alignment over the Amaravathi river..

                                            

                                        Kids going to school were seen through out this stretch..

                                               The crowd at Udumalaipettai Station.

                         The Express to Pollachi gets ready to depart from Udumalaipettai..

                  Things get back to normal once the train started to move out of sight....

   The second train from Palani, 06709 Palani - Pollachi passenger with ED WDM2 #18787 enters Udumalaipettai.

                                                      Same train view towards Palani.

                                                   

         Common scene along the route, Look at the size difference. Onboard the Passenger to Pollachi,

                                                                         Wind Power..

             ED WDM2 undergoing Loco reversal to take the Passenger back to Palani. 

               Line on the right will go to Podanur and the one on the left to Palghat Town.

                                     View of Pollachi station from Palghat Line..

                                    RAJARAJAN, the meter gauge crane at Pollachi.

                                     The meter gauge remains at Pollachi Junction..

                                   Mechanical & Muscular power at work, Pollachi.

     The Evening Express and the Passenger taking a break before starting their journey back to Palani.

                                                     Resting time for men and the machine...

              The Curious young girl walking towards Pollachi station to have a look at the trains..

                                    Udumalaipettai had the biggest crowd for the day..

                                     Most of the people had come just to watch the train..

                                           The sad state of meter gauge era at Palani..

Hope you all enjoyed the video and the pictures. Do post your comments and suggestions below.

Journey behind a Steam Loco....

                                                           STEAM LOCO SHED, METTUPALAYAM

Some things in life are priceless and i would put this journey in that list. The last time i heard a steam whistle was way back in 2003 during the 150th Celebration of Indian railways. well, i am going to tell you about my experience on Nilgiri mountain railway behind a steam Loco so here it goes.

6:15 am - Home signal cleared and we started moving towards Metupalayam station. My eyes started searching for the meter gauge tracks and the train. The Steam beauty along with the train was ready on the platform. I was bit disappointed as i had wished to see the loco coupling process. Nevertheless seeing a live steam loco after a long time was a blessing. I started roaming around the station and i 

ended up next to the steam loco shed, only one loco was present. Exactly an hour after i arrived at Mettupalayam, we departed towards Ooty with a short whistle by the Steam loco. As we started gaining some speed, a cow made us to stop all of a sudden. As we slowly neared the cow, the cow started moving along the tracks causing further delay. After 2 minutes of walking next to tracks the cow finally decided to change its course allowing us to pick up speed again. The station on the route, Kallar was reached. The Loco started drinking its water while passengers started their photo shoots.The rack and pinon system starts from here which helps the train have a extra grip as it starts to climb the hills. I will let the videos and pictures speak for the rest of the trip. It was just music for the ears as the steam loco chugged up the grade. Coonor was reached 15 minutes before time.
There is traction change here from Steam to Diesel.

                                                                                                                                                                     

                                       

To be continued....

Wiki info - Nilgiri Mountain Railway 

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (Tamil: நீலகிரி மலை ரயில்) is a railway in Tamil Nadu, India, built by the British in 1908,^[1] and was initially operated by the Madras Railway. The railway still relies on its fleet of steam locomotives.^[2] NMR comes under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Salem Division. In July 2005, UNESCO added the Nilgiri Mountain Railway as an extension to the World Heritage Site of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the site then became known as "Mountain Railways of India." After it satisfied the necessary criteria, thus forcing abandonment of the modernisation plans. For the past several years diesel locomotives have taken over from steam on the section between Coonoor and Udhagamandalam. Local people and tourists have led a demand for steam locos to once again haul this section.

  

A New Beginning

            

            The Race which changed the way i looked at trains. This happened in the year 2002 when i was supposed to go to Chennai along with my family via the temple towns of Tiruvanamalai and Melmaruvathur from Bangalore. We reached Melmaravatur station after visting the famous temple of AdiParasakthi. My Dad took the tickets for Perungulattur ( A station before Tambaram towards Chennai Egmore ). A MG train led by YAM1 was approaching, got excited thinking that we will board this train but to my bad luck dad said no, reason being that this trian does not stop at Perungulattur. The train halted for a minute and left. We then moved to the BG platform where our train was supposed to arrive. After few minutes, our train Villupuram - Tambram Passenger arrived behind GOC WDM2 ( was able to recollect the shed only because of GOC's beautiful Green livery. Not sure about the train's originating station. The below picture shows the livery of Golden Rock Shed, Ponmalai ). 

 We boarded this train, the train was quiet empty and i occupied the window seat on the action side. Around 20 minutes after we departed from the station saw the MG train again, it was crawling. As we neared it YAM1 accelerated away from us. We overtook it after some time as it had stopped for line clearance. The YAM1 train overtook us again as we had stopped at some station. The cat and mouse game continued till Chengalpattu Junction. We stopped here for a while, i dont remebemer what happened to YAM1 hauled train after that. After departing from Chengalpattu Junction, we crossed and overtook lot of MG EMU's. As we were nearing our destination, WDM2 gave us a surprise by skipping Perungalathur ( Got confirmation later that this train does not have a halt there). Finally we got down at Tambram and boarded a MG EMU back to Perungalathur. 

This was the last day i saw a YAM1 in action, i was really shocked to see this cute loco accelerate like that. That day changed the way i looked at trains, my interest in locomotive rocketed sky high and made me closer to the railways.