How we touched a OHE catenary wire and lived to tell the tale

This is one hell of ride so sit tight and read on....

It all started when we met up at shanks place and called GP over sometime in 2001 december, and decided that mamu we will see a WAP4 today in HYB station, so 3 musketeers boarded a 3 wheeler and give me 2 of that wheels due to heavy axle load..., we reach HYB station quickly and got into the trip shed. Now begins the fun part, many locos were parked there and there was one WAP4 we met up with the shed contact and he said we can see the loco and the human mind being a monkey said why only under it why not be on- a- top of things!!!!!!. We asked him if we could get on to loco he gave a crazy look but agreed as they were inspecting some Circuit breakers and the pantos on top. We slowly climbed on the wap4 in the following way, a ladder was attached from the roof above the cab door, we climbed upto the cab door and then gingerly moved to the left towards the ladder and on the roof of the loco. Now kids reading this dont try this at home, the electric catenary was tripped and earthed before we got on else we would be toast in a flash. Fearful of the 25kv snake on the roof we gingerly got on but the shed guy told us that it was earthed so any stray current would leak to the ground and not come upto the loco, and there was a air gap as well. Shanks started to test his lifting capacity by playing with the pantograph soon to find that the the combined TE of the three of us could lift it, then we touched the catenary and had a great feeling of elation we also saw the DJ and other stuff on the roof of the loco after all this we decided to get down from the roof and then view the other WAM4 locos lying around in the trip shed. This was one interesting trip to touch the catenary and come back and tell the tale..

Meeting a railfan for the first time

Let me now tell a nice story which changed my entire view of rail fanning and my life as well . It was the slightly rainy day in the month of September 2001 when after being on the IRFCA mailing list for some time, i got a mail from this guy named Shashanka Nanda. He was based at Raj Bhavan and we decided to meet up at coffee day panjagutta in SC( it still stands today i will get a snap). At that time this place was very quiet and peaceful unlike today and after 19.00 there was little traffic. So i was working in Banjara hills road no -03 and i left office a bit early and i see this reasonably medium sized guy in a attire which would make you pick out he is from a outstation shed, and knowing that he was a visitor i made a bold guess and introduced myself as lakshman T IRFCA member , after breaking the ice we then had some coffee together and then i think we did railfan or made a plan for the weekend. I did later meet him up at his place near rajbhavan this was way before necklace road station was built, i still remember that this guy raju who used to cook at shanks place(when he left, shanks was very moved, that's for another day) made lovely rotis and chai and shanks would say "Arey.....Rajjjju chai pila de yaar!!!!!!!!!" and he would respond "Abhi diya sir ". All this while we would see wdp4 shunting between SC-HYB play MSTS or watch the movements which we termed as "the game", no not MSTS but light coach movements from LGD coach overhaul workshop to HYB coaching depot. Then towards evening we would stroll down towards the line or watch trains disappear at James street from our home made RRI which was Shanks balcony. Soon enough we met one guy called Gautam Parthsarathy or GP for short (hope i got it right) who lived at MS matka at begumpet which is behind the HYB-SC line neat our member vrijlesh's house, we would often meet up at his place and chat about trains for hours till GP would throw us out literally..... any honk or hoot and we scramble to the terrace and watch the light engine moments or just buy some chips and coke and keep discussing, GP friends did get quite fed up and when they saw us coming they would run away, the biggest runner was a guy called Andy if i am right, , one of GP favourite words would be " I swear ", it was as regular as a wdm2 letting of air cylinder pressure!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I will add more later in this got to crash now...

Secunderabad my Favourite station in Indian Railways

Secunderabad or SC station as it known among railfans is one of the older stations on IR built way back in the 1870's .SC station has been very dear to me since my childhood though i started out at Hyderabad a Sister station of Secunderabad which was once a Goods Yard.

The memories of having a single line to begumpet from Hyderabad and seeing the sparkling hussain sagar water in 1983 when i was 5 years old and the earth work for the second line to Begumpet from Hyderabad which is now the line trains take to SC from HYB, the GTL alco screaming away into the sunset and saying i am the mover and doer of all the people who depend on me, philosphical dont you think?. The days when Begumpet had a level crossing with cycles and mopeds crossing the track at a slow pace and srinivasa towers was the point beyond which half return was charged in daylight for auto meters. Sadly i never remember seeing steam though in that line.


Anyway back on track here is a pic of SC station



For more of my pics which are experi-mental to say the least visit this place
http://flickr.com/photos/7623191@N08/

I first remember going to SC when i shifted to Tarnaka area which was 5 km from the station, the reason being it was close to my Mom's place of work.And as luck would have had it i was 1 km from the main line from SC-Kazipet also, I will relate my juvenile railfan adventures in another episode so stay tuned..

I think i first visited SC in 1990 i think to go to MAS for a cousin's wedding by the charminar express and i was amazed at how huge the station was compared to HYB which seemed like a small yard. The big lights and the many engines reminded me of the feeling which Jerry mouse got in one of the Tom and Jerry cartoons where he leaves Tom and heads for New York and is dazzled by the bright lights and modernity of the place. The then charminar express was 19 coaches long i guess and hauled by a single KZJ wdm2 which was in crack condition upto Kazipet then a WAM4 of Vijaywada would take over.

Refer this page for the meaning of wdm2 and wam4
http://www.irfca.org/faq/index.html

I remember how i used to plan and stay awake all night without eating anything just to watch the train tear through costal India after BZA and we used to cross small stations at 110-115 kmph as well (over speeding was permitted in those days).

Anyway back on track i keep changing too many points to get the main line !!!!!!

After 1995 when i entered my college days in little flower Junior college uppal, SC member Vrijlesh who also studied there didn't hear of me as i was quiet guy then, i used to venture out quite frequently to SC and watch trains and we had quite a few electrics and many many pista coloured KZJ wdm2 locos. More later .......

MMTS in the twin cities

MMTS is now a in thing in SC and HYB, people have taken to MMTS like fish who have been out of water. When it was introduced on Aug 9th 2003 at Bhoiguda side entrance by Shri Lal Krishna Advani it was a huge event. I still remember the day when i went to SC by 9 am and was frisked by the security and asked to fire a flash in my camera, luck had it that it did not fire they gave me that " I will rip you apart look"!!!!!!!. Then heaven graced me and the flash fired and marked my entry to the world of MMTS in SCR. I heard all the Blah blah by the netas but one speech i did listen to was the speech by Stanley Babu the then GM of SCR , who was very good and capable in my opinion. After a lot of stage hogging by netas like Advani and others including Chandra Babu Naidu went on a trial run on the rake arranged for them and people were left outside.The rake came back at 2 pm that day and the first train which was supposed to be run at 11 am started at 15.55 pm amid loud fanfare and cheering made me think how would have been the day at Mumbai when the trains started in India.

Here is a pic of the event

My first attempt at blogging

Inspired by shanks mamu blog i decided on 05 july 2007 a landmark day on the internet for sure to test the waters of blogging and unleash creative hell on the world wide web , i would be adding pics trips reports etc of my railway side trips and also many things on SC which i like very much. Lets open the blog with a nice photo of Buddha on HSJ oops i mean Hussain Sagar.