Chiplun

Mesmerising Konkan Journey - Dadar to Chiplun with scenery, skips, crossings, tunnels and bridges!!!

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• published: 08 Jan 2017
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On New Year’s Eve, that is 31st December, 2016, railfan Arzan Kotval and I did a trip to the town of Chiplun, in the Konkan region of Maharashtra. We had made reservations from Dadar to Chiplun on the 01095 Mumbai CST - Sawantwadi Holiday Special. We were lucky as it got a monster Kalyan WDG-4 that day. The WDG-4 is a goods locomotive so obviously the 12 coach Holiday Special was nothing for the engine. Overall it was a very nice journey, and the journey description can be seen as follows : The Holiday Special arrives at Dadar Platform 4 at 05:31 am and comes to a halt very slowly. 4 minutes later, we depart from Dadar with some quick acceleration. We rush past the stations of suburban Mumbai, Kurla and Bhandup can be seen in the video. We are held up outside Thane as we are trailing the Jan Shatabdi Express. We finally depart Thane at 6:06 am. At the Diva curve also we are made to wait for 2 Mumbai CST bound express trains to pass before we are given clearance to cross over towards Panvel. All this results in delays and we reach Panvel at 7:10 am, half an hour late. However after Panvel we pick up speed very fast and the fog comes down on the tracks. The train is racing through the fog and it is freezing cold to stand at the door. But it is so beautiful that it is an experience worth the effort. We skip Apta station at 7:30 am and then pass over the Patalganga river which looks just amazing with the fog. That scene can be seen in the video. The curve after Jite station is also wonderful, as the train takes a full 90 degree turn. We slow down as we pass Pen station and then come to a halt outside Nagothane for a goods train to cross. This is because the Jan Shatabdi is waiting ahead of us at Nagothane station for the same goods train, since it is a single track after Nagothane. We depart Roha at 8:45 am, finally entering actual Konkan Railway territory. Our first crossing is at Mangaon station at 9:10 am, where we are pulled into the loop line for the crossing of the Kochuveli - Dehradun Express. We fly past the beautiful scenery of Veer. At 9:45 am, you can have a look at the acceleration of the WDG-4 engine from Karanjadi station, as we pick up from 0 to 100 km/hr in just 2 minutes. We had halted on the mainline to wait for the Ratnagiri - Dadar Passenger. At 10:00 am, we are lucky to overtake a RORO - the famous Konkan Railway truck carrying train - at Diwan Khavati station. We were made to overtake it from the loop line so we got a nice and slow look at it. We were made to wait at Khed for 10 minutes for a goods train to cross. After leaving Khed we were halted the next station called Anjani at 10:35 am, for the crossing of the Ernakulam – Nizamuddin Mangala Lakshadweep Express. This was a real blast as the train flew past with twin diesel engines. This can also be seen in the video. Finally at 11:00 am, we arrive at Chiplun after a 5 and a half hours journey from Dadar. We take a rickshaw to the Vashishti River Bridge, just in time to capture our train accelerating as it passes over the bridge. It was indeed a wonderful way to end the journey, as well as to start the last day of year 2016... A whole day of railfanning was left ahead of us at beautiful Chiplun! Please watch, like, comment and share! Date of video: 31st December, 2016