Last Tuesday morning I had an extensive railfanning session around Panskura Junction on the Howrah Kharagpur line of South Eastern Railways. This post is about a CNB Kanpur WAG7 locomotive no. 28432 which was spotted by me at outskirts of NPMR station cruising with a heavy freight train at high speed. It is quite amusing always but not anything abnormal, that these locos are capable of carrying such heavy load. Hence it was cool to spot this only one guy hauling this heavy container loaded freight train at such high speed.
This is part of my series on late December train sightings around PKU Panskura Junction under South Eastern Railway Zone.
Yesterday I had a short railfanning trip at multiple spots around PKU-Panskura Junction which is on the busy Howrah Kharagpur line under the South Eastern Railway Zone. This section is not new to local and distant railfans and needs no special introduction.
This region/ section gives a great oppertunity to the railfans to spot some cool trains, and some very special ones, which usually do not have any stop overs here and runs at high speed. I managed to do a great deal of railfanning and spotted some cool train pass throughs. While I now have a big inventory of my spottings, I shall share them on this blog, on Youtube and my other social media handles in due course.
This post is about the Tatanagar WAP7 no 30535. It literally made my day as it stormed with the 12871 Howrah to Titlagarh Ispat Express.
Here is the video of the train storming through the HWH KGP line near PKU:
Now this loco is not new to my blog. It made multiple appearances here. Do you all remember the Cotton-ball Kitty post?? Here is the video below, and read it again here:
It was then spotted at Shalimar Railway station taking out the 12885 Aranyak Express and having a sore throat, (It seems the sore throat problem is cured!! BTW SHM which is also my and my blog's home station) on 25th September (same day/ date as that Cottonball Kitty post). Watch the video here (below), and read the post again:
The 38031 and 38032 Shalimar Santragachi local and vice versa takes some cool curves to and from PDPK Padmapukur Railway station in the South Eastern Railway Zone. Hope you like the same
Watch both the trains take some lovely curves here:
Here is the RF Data (for the current observation):
Date: December 20, 2017
Place:PDPK - Padmapukur Railway Station.
Zone (Spotting location):SER - South Eastern Railway Loco: NA - EMU Train EMU Shed: EMU train/ South Eastern Railway EMU Zone: South Eastern Railway
Train (s): - 38031 SHM - SRC local - 38032 SRC - SHM local
(**Please report if any link above is broken)
Thanks for stopping by. As always, corrections, comments, suggestions new ideas, travel tips (or anything) are very much welcome and appreciated.
The concerned video of this post which you can find here, or in the video thumbnail player below, was updated yesterday. I was a bit busy so comparatively this post goes late.
Last Wednesday on 20th, I had another brief railfanning session at PDPK-Padmapukur Railway Station. I had the oppertunity to spot the arrival of the 22836 Puri Shalimar Weekly Superfast Express to Shalimar Railway station via PDPK. To my surprise, the train was being hauled by a Howrah WAP-4 loco no. 22610. While this train usually gets a VSKP loco, mostly a VSKP WAP4 and WAM4, Howrah WAP4 for this train is pretty rare, so it was a pleasant surprise no doubt.
Find the video of arrival of this train that I made which you can find below. There are two parts of the same - in the first part the train comes in and in the second part, the loco leaves Shalimar via PDPK towards the loco shed for it's next duty.
Watch the video of the loco coming through with the train:
The 22836 Puri Shalimar SF Express is a frequently spotted train on my blog, you can read all past and newer post through this link here.
Here is the RF Data (for the current observation):
Date: December 20, 2017
Place:PDPK - Padmapukur Railway Station.
Zone (Spotting location):SER - South Eastern Railway Loco: HowrahWAP4(no. 22610) Loco Shed: HWH - Howrah Loco Zone: Eastern Railway
This post comes from the spotting sessions I did last month in November 2017. On 27th November, two NKJ New Katni Junction loco shed's WAG5 locomotive variants - no. 23908 and 23915, were spotted at PDPK-Padmapukur which were heading towards Shalimar yard with a freight train (Read the older post about these two WAG5s bringing in the freight train hereand the #photoblog post here).
An hour or so after leaving the freight train to the Shalimar yard, the locos were spotted leaving the stations and later made approach towards the loco shed at Santragachi.
Well, the twin NKJ WAG5 locos were variants and was freshly painted and looked neat. While the Barbie Doll livery loco (no. 23914) stole most of the camera time, the other one loco (no. 23908) was also quite handsome and looked impressive.
I want to re-quote the following from the last blog post:
- Mr. Rabin Saha, on YouTube kindly commented and informed the following, as I quote him" ...NKJ WAG5s are more clear than ET,TKD and VSKPs.Last week I spotted same coloured NKJ brothers at my local station Santoshpur (SSP).I would like to inform you that VSKP WAG5P #23838 which was spotted by you twice was involved in inaugural run of Vishakhapatnam-Araku Glass special passenger". He was referring to my previous sighting of VSKP WAG5 no. 23838, you can read the concerned blog posthere. You can watch the video of the twin WAG5s bringing in the freight train here:
Watch as the WAG5s brings in the freight train to Shalimar via PDPK:
Today it is time for another PhotoBlog update. Earlier this week I couldn't do much railfanning and even could not go out, as there was a bad cyclonic depression condition which lasted for several days (I mentioned earlier in my blog).
It rained much and was gloomy and hot. Now this was very unusual for this time of the year. So after gap of a few days, I managed to go out this morning and did some railfanning. Main aim however was not trainspotting, but morning walk, anyhow I always carry my small camera with me. Though being Thursday the station area in the morning was calm and quite and there was not many train arrival/ departures. I could only spot this departure of the 12885 Aranyak Express and no other trains came in or went out between 0630 to 0830 AM.
Winter is such an amazing time. Things looks so amazing and mesmerizing. While you are only able to see this picture above for now, I was able to make whole video of the train's departure which I shall share later. Likely it should go up tomorrow on YouTube [Dec 15 Edit: Watch it on the link below or here].
If you remember I posted a similar picture in another recent photoblog post, which you can read here. Shalimar's Shunter loco "WDS6" appeared like a snake out of Shalimar through dense fog and it was shunting the rakes of 22214 Patna Shalimar Duronto. The picture of the same from the previous blog post can be found below.
BTW, the 12885 Aranyak Express is very frequently spotted train on my blog. You can read all my post about spotting the Aranyak Express here.
Dec 15 update: Watch the video of Aranyak cutting through the fog here:
Here is the RF Data:
Date: December 14, 2017
Place:PDPK - Padmapukur Railway Station.
Zone (Spotting location): SER - South Eastern Railway Loco:SRC WAP4 (no. 22896) Loco Shed: SRC - Santragachi
Loco Zone: SER - South Eastern Railway
Train: 12885 Aranyak Express.
Thanks for stopping by. As always, corrections, comments, suggestions new ideas, travel tips (or anything) are very much welcome and appreciated.
I was planning to put up this post and video for sometime, and here it goes: This is sort of an experimental one - A big compilation of three different locomotives approaching towards SHM-Shalimar Railway Station via PDPK-Padmapukur (shot here at PDPK) for serving respective trains from Shalimar. Find the compilation video here or at the thumbnail video link player below.
In order of the appearance of the locos in the video you will find three different locos: Firstly came was the mighty offlink oldie WAG5 from ET-Itarsi loco shed. Then there was a lovely WAP4 from Howrah and lastly our very own SRC-Santragachi WAP4.
I have actually posted about this ET-Itarsi loco before. But the previously posted video was shot on a different date than this featured on the current video. Read the previous blog post here. The Howrah WAP4 (no. 22528) was leaving after serving the 22214 Patna Shalimar Duronto Express, and lastly the Santragachi WAP4 (no. 22840) which also came in to serve the Aranyak Express made the final appearance. All these videos were shot on different days but at the same location which is now compiled in a single video. Watch the three loco mega compilation in the video below:
Read the previous blog post about the ITARSI WAG5 (no. 23780) loco departing with 12885 Aranyak Express here and the video is linked below:
It was so nice to spot this train arriving at Shalimarlast Wednesday. If you recall my last post about the BEML EMU (read it here), I was returning home after filming that train. In fact I travelled on the same BEML EMU from Santragachi to Shalimar and just walked to a good spot to find the EMU leaving. After it left it was also time for me to return home. Just in time, I heard the mighty horn of this SRC-WAP4 (no. 22329) and in no time it appeared with the 12774 Secunderabad Shalimar Weekly AC Express, which was upgraded to LHB coaches sometime back. Do watch the video of it's arrival on the link mentioned below or directly here on YouTube.
What always makes me love this train is it's color combination. The bright red WAP4 loco and the bright red LHB coaches makes it so beautiful, and I just wish the generator cum parcel wan was also red instead of the grey-blue livery.
Watch the 12774 SC - SHM Weekly AC Express arriving at SHm-Shalimar here:
While I am posting this a cyclonic depression has formed here in the eastern region of the country and it raining since the morning. I was planning for another railfanning session this morning, but decided to stay back due to the rains, and it was also much cold. Not a good idea to go out in such weather and it is also not suitable for making videos or general photography. Enclosed is a picture from IMD Indian Meteorological department. I have highlighted the region affected, kindly click on the picture to zoom the area. I think I will have to stay indoors for sometime. Here is the RF Data:
The last made WAP4 locomotive of IR, WAP4 no. 25051 was assigned to SER's SRC-Santragachi loco shed. Today while I was at Padmapukur for morning walk, I spotted this loco approaching/ coming in towards SHM-Shalimar railway station via PDPK, to serve the 12885Aranyak Express. What interesting was how this loco was shaking while running at high speed as spotted at the approach area of PDPK. You can see the video here or in the video thumbnail below.
I was not aware that this loco is the last made WAP4 by the Indian Railways. Thanks to Mr. Saha on my YouTube, once again for providing such great information. While this SRC WAP4 was indeed special, SRC WAP4s are normal loco link of the 12885 Aranyak Express.
If you are a new reader of my blog then I wish to tell you that I spot the Aranyak Express quite regularly. Mainly because this train gets so many kind of different locomotives which is a train spotters delight. You can read all my past posts and even follow future posts about spotting the Aranyak Express here.
Watch the loco pass and also later the Aranyak Express hauled by the same loco in the link below:
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Here is the RF Data (for the current observation):
Earlier today (December 6th) I went to Santragachi area for some personal work. Touched the SRC-Santragachi junction and thought of returning home to Shalimar from SRC-Santragachi by train instead of a bus. This is what a railfan always does - train travel preferred more than other mode of transport whenever it is available/ possible!
The lady on duty at the SRC ticket booking office next to the PF-5 early that morning was, I believe overworked, frustrated and was behaving crazy. She was arguing with all passengers, over lack of change with her. Though my (and other passengers') experience with her was absolutely not a good one (and that definitely was not a good face-keeper for South Eastern Railway), I think I should forget that.
Well I was rewarded for choosing the train journey. The down Mecheda Shalimar local for which I was waiting for appeared a few minutes late, but was a BEML EMU. BEML stands for 'Bharat Earth Movers Ltd' which made these stainless steel EMU trains which are much comfortable and way better than old existing EMU trains. Such a BEML EMU is uncommon for the Shalimar - Santragachi section.
My YouTube follower Mr. Rabin Saha comments: "BEML EMU is better than ICF, Jessop, Texmaco and Siemens .It is regular in our Sealdah-Budge budge section and I have boarded it several times. It is very comfortable to ride and it has good acceleration. A lot of thanks to you for this." Mr Saha is a great supporter of "Soumo's Railways" blog, and he often leaves important piece of information in the comments.
The concerned train - "38310 Mecheda (MCA) to Shalimar (SHM) Local" leaves Mecheda at 0703 hrs, arrives SRC at 0813 hrs and SHM at around 0830 hrs touching PDPK in between around hrs.0821. Read more about the train here and here. From Shalimar this train returns as 38031 Shalimar (SHM) to Santragachi (SRC) Local. It starts from SHM on 0845 hrs, touches PDPK on 0849 hrs and finally arrives SRC at around 0900 hrs. Read about the train here and here. Watch the EMU observed both at SRC and SHM here on the link below:
Here is the RF Data (for the current observation):
