Experiencing the WAP-7 Part -03 The Home Run

Starting right on time at 06.10 hrs, we slowly crawled out of BZA yard upto cheruvu madhavaram with the fresh morning breeze as company. The loco was doing 40-50 kmph due to a large number of PSR's. After cheruvu madhavaram the driver who was quite irritated that we were losing time, hit the MAX TE position at once. The train with 22 coaches on a up gradient started picking up like an EMU and there was no jerking or any vibration in the coach. This type of Max TE running continued till Mahbubabad where we lost a few minutes due to a signal.
The driver seemed to be enjoying the MAX TE position as he was constantly pushing the loco to the position after any restriction or station exit. Kazipet was reached 5 minutes late and we halted for quite some time. Leaving kazipet at 9.40 we encountered a long caution order just outside the station which was also a 1:100 gradient. The WAP-7 which was on BPCS maintained steady TE and the
caution order was over 1.5 kms long. It was only after crossing raghunathpalli that all the caution order's cleared up and the driver with a long drawn blast of the HT horn pushed the loco again to MAX TE on level track and let it fly. We were cruising past Aler and Janagaon at a steady speed with no slow downs. Bhongir and Ghatkesar were quick work for the train and we were slowed down at the
bypass line cabin at MLY and halted at MLY station at 11.07 am covering 352 kms with 6 stops and caution orders in just under 5 hours. (4 hrs 57 minutes to be exact). After being held at MLY for over 25 minutes we were cleared to SC at 11.31 am and reached SC smoothly back on PF-09 at 11.40 am 5 mins before time.

I sheepishly got of the coach and took a few snaps of the WAP-7 30253 which would take back this train with a new set of travelers that same evening and rushed back home for lunch and a sound nap.