An Unforgettable Journey In The Meter Gauge Jewel of North East

A 3 Day epic journey covering a small patch of once a vast North East Meter Gauge Network, was the best we could do to serve a punishment of missing out on the major sections now lost buried under the sands of time and the gauge conversion of Progress. We started from Agartala and sailed our way though Karimganj, Badarpur and culminating at Silchar across the three days. Wish we could have covered more

Date: 2014-09-27
Owner: Gallery Administrator
Size: 46 items
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Day-1, After covering the entire Bay of Bengal from Singapore to Agartala via Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata flight nothing could refresh a tired body than a sight of 2 YDM4s standing proudly between the sign board of the Capital of Tripura (Trayambak Ojha

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The hunk despite of its livery waning out, its charm never will (Trayambak Ojha)

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And the first action starts pretty late for us in the day as the passenger towards Karimganj puffs some light smoke and trudges ahead (Trayambak Ojha)

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While the sun was preparing to set, we were in doubts whether our evening service towards Karimganj, the Agartala-Lumding Express would depart or not since the incoming train was horribly late. All doubts were put to rest by the Station Master and the thi

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Being one of the Eastern Most part of India, the sun had already retired while the station was buzzing with activity (Trayambak Ojha)

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As it gets darker the locos for the passenger and the Agartala-Lumding Express are all geared up for their departures. We board the train and retire for the day, while the departure was delayed by over 2 hours (Trayambak Ojha)

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Day-2, We had arrived Karimganj well past midnight at unearthly hours of 2am. After having a much needed rest for a few hours, we started early at Karimganj, to capture the atmosphere (Trayambak Ojha)

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The train from Badarpur had just arrived and would head towards Silchar with this loco manoeuvring the semaphore heaven (Trayambak Ojha)

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While one train on the left had arrived from Mahishasan towards Badarpur, the one on the right had arrived from badarpur with reversal at Karimganj towards Silchar (Trayambak Ojha)

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The turnaround times for the trains are pretty less as the train from Mahishasan departs after long halt (Trayambak Ojha)

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We shifted our action, towards rural Assam now having covered the station well. Near Nilambazar a curved location seemed enticing and we were first greeted by a Meter Gauge Plasser Machine (Trayambak Ojha)

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Soon the weather gods opened up and the train from Agartala with a meter gauge AC Chair Car snakes out of the green thickets (Trayambak Ojha)

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As we moved ahead after capturing the train, we arrived at Nilambazar station only to be greeted by a stationery freight, the first of our trip and a smokey departure of Agartala-Silchar Express (Trayambak Ojha)

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As the weather was turning hostile and no action forseen in near future we decided to move towards Badarpur, where a sweet surprise awaited us. A Steam operated Crane working on the tracks. Sheer joy it was (Trayambak Ojha)

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Badarpur yard was as scenic as possible with goods rolling stock lying and a ready to depart freight with headlights on standing on ceremony (Trayambak Ojha)

Comments
(view all 13 comments)
Superb pics.... Great coverage Trayambak...
Posted by Bhaveen Patel on 2014 Nov 24 13:05:41 +0000
A great return to memories of journeys past - thanks!
Posted by Mohan Bhuyan on 2014 Nov 24 07:45:52 +0000
Lovely set. Glad to see these photographs.
Posted by Abhijnan Ray on 2014 Nov 20 08:54:12 +0000