I had gone slow on blogging
in the past few months. You can blame it on the transition from being ‘Single’
to ‘Married’ or to sheer lack of enthusiasm to write. So when I decided to blog
again, my first love came to the rescue, ‘Railfanning’. Here we go again. :-)
To see the break of dawn,
you need to rise earlier than the Sun. The alarm rang at 5:45am and giving it
symphony was the patter of raindrops hitting my window pane. Snoozing and going
back to sleep in such a misty weather
was not an option for me
considering the fact that I was handling my department alone for the last 14
days without even a weekly off as my colleague was on his annual leave.
The 10 day long Ganesh Festival
had culminated yesterday night and I was expecting more people to board trains
to work today with an irritated frame of mind (We are always lazy and irritated
to join back after a long leave). The early news pouring in on Whatsapp group dedicated
to Railfanning was that, EMUs on CR and WR were running late because of the
incessant rains last night.
As usual, the morning
chores got the better of me and instead of reaching on time to catch the 7.01
slow to Ghatkopar (GC); I reached at 7:09. A cursory glance at the Down Fast
indicator, gave me a glimmer of hope. The 6:58am, 15 car Fast to Kalyan (KYN)
was yet to arrive. This train reaches KYN by 7:07 and returns back at 7:14.
Following it, is a barrage of Fast locals as the official peak hour starts with
this local. EMUs start getting priority on the section after the 7:14 fast,
prior to that, it’s the Mail/Expresses (M/E) which rule the roost. I decided to
board this local in return direction which was now late by 12 minutes, expecting
a faster turnaround at KYN. Soon we reached KYN platform 6 and I noted that an
UP Fast had already reached from South East (SE) line and the acumen of the Section
Controllers, made it leave ASAP. Amazingly, we were allowed to follow this
local, which normally follows the 15 car, as today we were late and that SE
line UP Direction Fast was on time. We had a turnaround time of just 2 minutes and
departed KYN delayed by 8 min.
The Maximum Permissible Speed
(MPS) of the 15 car is 90kmph whereas the local which went ahead of us is
100kmph. We reached Dombivli (DI), now late by 8 minutes. The sweeping job of emptying
the commuters of platform 5 of DI was done by the Fast which left ahead of us.
So the 15 car had comparatively less people to board. The Permanent Speed
Restriction (PSR) of 50kmph at Diva (DW) and Caution Order(CO) inside the
Parsik Tunnel not withstanding we managed to reach GC late only by 6 min at
7:55,against the schedule of 7:49.
I am sure by the time it
reaches CST Mumbai, further cut in the lost time can be brought in and again a
shorter turnaround time at CST should fairly bring it back on time for the next
service in Down direction. There are so many departments working in unison to
keep the Mumbai Railways working on time. Kudos to all of them from the bottom
of my heart as it’s the functioning of various unknown people in railways that
keeps the lifeline of Mumbai running day in and day out.
Nikhil P Karunakaran
