A Discreet Meter Gauge from Bihar

As India hastily moves towards Gauge conversion this small meter gauge section between Purnia Jn to Banmankhi owards Bihariganj is a lifeline for the locals and people use it extensively for their daily travel. This never before covered section is captured through the lenses of Trayambak Ojha, Sriskandh Subramanian and Akshay Subramanian who chased almost every train under daylight in a Car at every vantage points.

Date: 2012-08-07
Owner: Gallery Administrator
Size: 30 items
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On a day with a dramatic sky and hide and seek playing sunlight. A passenger service towards Banmankhi from Purnia Jn makes headway on a small viaduct enroute (Trayambak Ojha)

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Just as we position ourselves near a small station named Alinagar Tola a fully loaded Meter gauge service from banmankhi appears with people positioned all over the train with cycles hanging. Tha plan was to chase every train at vantage points throughout

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We proceeded a further ahead to capture the same train appearing in a much open area but the crowd was still intact. Reminded me of the fevicol ad (Trayambak Ojha)

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As the train disappeared through the remote villages of Purnia district there was a lot of speculation amongst the locals on our motives (Trayambak Ojha)

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Through the farmlands of Bihar this meter gauge service is the lifeline of the people in this area with more than 100% occupancy in the trains (Trayambak Ojha)

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Negotiating numerous curves and through the dense thickets the late running service to Purnia from Banmankhi had lots of Bollywood & Hollywood stuntmen standing tall comfortably on the trains (Trayambak Ojha)

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The train packed to capacity had many stuntmen who had occupied every available space in their train along with their wares. This section is a lifeline to these people (Trayambak Ojha)

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Through the rice plantations this alco showed that it can show it's power of smoking (Trayambak Ojha)

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The train to Purnia junction enters the viaduct as the cows are grazing in the grasslands and enjoying the dark clouds were the passengers boarded on the roofs (Trayambak Ojha)

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We hastily reached Purnia Court station just on time for the capturing the departure of the MG train belching dark clouds of burnt diesel. Adjacent to the mainline was a freight rake which seemingly was defunct. (Trayambak Ojha)

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Just as the train left Purnia Court station a chain pulling resulted in train coming to grinding halt. Post that we requested the LP to light up the headlamps and he obliged us (Trayambak Ojha)

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The freight rake on the adjacent line had some tankers as well. A closer look at it (Trayambak Ojha)

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Blowing dust around the return passenger service from Purnia Jn to Banmankhi onwards to Bihariganj cruises through the Rice farms and grasslands grazed by cows and herders seeing them off (Trayambak Ojha)

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Negotiating a curve just ahead of the largest viaduct on the section the passenger train seemingly had lesser passegers since it was already in the afternoon (Trayambak Ojha)

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The viaduct seemed to be on an S curve as there was another sharp curve just after the viaduct where the train moves gracefully (Trayambak Ojha)

Comments
(view all 17 comments)
wonderful album...
Posted by Pramit Mitra on 2013 Jul 17 10:40:19 +0100
Lovely Album guys...
Each picture tells a story... :)
Posted by Avishek Basu on 2012 Aug 22 08:04:58 +0100
Great coverage Trayambak!! Beautiful album!!!
Posted by Bhaveen Patel on 2012 Aug 18 06:36:30 +0100