IR Haryana dawn 54787 MHU-FGH 200318
Nice morning as the sun rises over Haryana state between Manheru and Fatehgarh Haryana. From onboard train 54787, the 06:40 Bhiwani - Rewari Passenger, Tuesday 20th March 2018. Power was Tughlakabad WDP1 15033.
For the first time in the trip there was lots of communication chord pulling and consequently toot-toot-tooooooot from the driver to indicate the brakes have involuntarily gone in. There's an Rs1000 fine or up to one year in prison for 'pulling the chain' but nobody seems to get punished: trains can lose a great deal of time through it and it's extremely bloody annoying. This service was absolutely rammed and set the scene for the rest of the day on the Rewari line commuters.
I'd intended to do the 18:45 Shri Ganganagar - Sadulpur Passenger throughout on the Previous evening, arriving Sadulpur at 01:00, then the recently introduced train 14717 (once a week Bikaner - Haridwar Express) at 02:40 to either Rohtak or Panipat, via several pieces of virgin route for me and a reasonable sleep. Pretty rancid, however two quite tricky bits of track to cover loco-hauled dealt with in a single, although admittedly desperate and awful, move (but, perversely, I do quite enjoy the odd middle of the night moves - another interesting side of India experienced). Sadly, the Passenger was withdrawn and I ended up missing a bit of track and on a new but significantly earlier train resulting in four hours to wait around at Sadulpur (I was actually lucky to stumble on the new train and things could have been a complete disaster, stranded hundreds of miles from my bed with the planned move in tatters!).
To add to the rancidity the 'overnight' train turned up with a crappy WDP4B. Grrrr! The coach attendant couldn't be found to supply my bedding (I had difficulty getting access to my coach too - always a worry when getting on in the middle of the night) and the TTE wasn't impressed when I started rummaging around at the coach ends trying to sort my own bedding out! Do your bloody jobs you lazy sods! I ended up bailing out at Bhiwani after only three hours and even less sleep to escape the vile EMD mileage and try and salvage something from the day.
There's always at least one shitty day and TBH I was very lucky this trip that this was really the only one. Others out there recently have had a much worse time of it with the relentless presence of EMDs and electrification bringing about a slow death for the ALCos and ever increasing uncertainty, apart from the certainty that things will go tits-up at some point or other or often!
IR Haryana dawn 54787 MHU-FGH 200318
Nice morning as the sun rises over Haryana state between Manheru and Fatehgarh Haryana. From onboard train 54787, the 06:40 Bhiwani - Rewari Passenger, Tuesday 20th March 2018. Power was Tughlakabad WDP1 15033.
For the first time in the trip there was lots of communication chord pulling and consequently toot-toot-tooooooot from the driver to indicate the brakes have involuntarily gone in. There's an Rs1000 fine or up to one year in prison for 'pulling the chain' but nobody seems to get punished: trains can lose a great deal of time through it and it's extremely bloody annoying. This service was absolutely rammed and set the scene for the rest of the day on the Rewari line commuters.
I'd intended to do the 18:45 Shri Ganganagar - Sadulpur Passenger throughout on the Previous evening, arriving Sadulpur at 01:00, then the recently introduced train 14717 (once a week Bikaner - Haridwar Express) at 02:40 to either Rohtak or Panipat, via several pieces of virgin route for me and a reasonable sleep. Pretty rancid, however two quite tricky bits of track to cover loco-hauled dealt with in a single, although admittedly desperate and awful, move (but, perversely, I do quite enjoy the odd middle of the night moves - another interesting side of India experienced). Sadly, the Passenger was withdrawn and I ended up missing a bit of track and on a new but significantly earlier train resulting in four hours to wait around at Sadulpur (I was actually lucky to stumble on the new train and things could have been a complete disaster, stranded hundreds of miles from my bed with the planned move in tatters!).
To add to the rancidity the 'overnight' train turned up with a crappy WDP4B. Grrrr! The coach attendant couldn't be found to supply my bedding (I had difficulty getting access to my coach too - always a worry when getting on in the middle of the night) and the TTE wasn't impressed when I started rummaging around at the coach ends trying to sort my own bedding out! Do your bloody jobs you lazy sods! I ended up bailing out at Bhiwani after only three hours and even less sleep to escape the vile EMD mileage and try and salvage something from the day.
There's always at least one shitty day and TBH I was very lucky this trip that this was really the only one. Others out there recently have had a much worse time of it with the relentless presence of EMDs and electrification bringing about a slow death for the ALCos and ever increasing uncertainty, apart from the certainty that things will go tits-up at some point or other or often!