VSKP WAP4, Railfanning At PDPK & Testing My New Camera

Loco pilots on duty | © Soumos Railways

Happy October everyone. This week I got a new camera for railfanning. I was very unsatisfied with the Sony Cybershot camera that I was using, and the 6 month old camera had to be shelved for good (at least for now) as it fell from my hand and some sensors like things have got damaged. I thought of buying a new and a better camera, so I upgraded from a Sony Cybershot to a Canon Powershot. My first preference was a Canon camera, instead of a Sony. My experience with Sony was not very good. Today was the first day of testing the new camera, so I had a great time doing some trainspotting at SHM-Shalimar and PDPK-Padmapukur Railway Stations.

VSKP WAP4  | © Soumos Railways

This first post in this series is about spotting a VSKP- WAP4, loco, no. 22943, that came in to Shalimar Railway Station to serve the 22861 Rajya Rani Express. Usually the 22861 Rajya Rani gets a SRC WAP4, but also all kinds of other locos. But VSKP WAP4 is not assigned for this train in recent memory, at least to my knowledge. While it was standing around PDPK waiting for signal/ clearance to approach SHM, I was thinking that it could be an usual SRC one, but was happy to find this red hunk from the Visakhapatnam Loco Shed. BTW I was in Visakhapatnam last June on a work trip. The Visakhapatnam Railway Station is just amazing (just notice the background image of this blog, it was taken from the overbridge at VSKP). I did quite a bit of discreet railfanning at the station and throughout my trip. You can access the video playlist here. BTW this playlist is about my all observations on East Coast Railway territory, which includes those made on the said Visakhapatnam trip.

You can watch the video of the loco approaching and my camera taking a closer look of the LPs chatting in the cabin, by clicking on the video thumbnail below:

Here is the RF Data:

Birdwatching along with trainspotting! | © Soumos Railways

Date: October 06, 2017
Place: Near PDPK - Padmapukur Railway Station
Zone (Spotting location): SER - South Eastern Railway
Loco: WAP4 no. 22943
Loco Shed: VSKP - Visakhapatnam.
Loco Zone: ECoR East Coast Railway
Loco Assigned to train: 22861 Rajya Rani Express

Thanks for stopping by. As always, corrections, comments, suggestions new ideas, travel tips (or anything) are very much welcome and appreciated.

© Soumos Railways | Do connect with #SoumosRailways 
on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and Instagram.