Around Madras Central

Dated May 2004

We continued from Park Town, and entered MAS. It was just before 1600 and I wanted to watch the Grand Trunk Express to New Delhi departing. At 1600, 7053 HYB express left, and today it was the turn of BZA WAG5 to haul this train. Pretty large load for a WAG5, one might think, but then this is a goods loco, and so it’s starting torque is much higher than a WAM4, though its top speed is not. I have seen BZA WAM4s being asked to do this job, and recently, it became the turn of LGD WAP4s. This was a one-off occurrence, probably.

Then on to the Grand Trunk (nice name is it not?? It conjures up images of a train going from one end of the country to another) at platform 5. The power was a usual ED WAP4 22550 (Rabibrata's WAP4 list says this belongs to CNB??). The loco looks clean and spanking new, especially when seen from the front. All I could say about it, was, a beautiful machine. One doubt, the loco had some structure like vertical netting (my best description I am afraid!) on its top. Any idea as to what it could be? One bad thing: seats were the old type seats, not very comfy. GT pulled out on time (loco started moving in the 3rd notch itself) sounding its melodious horn. What a sound!!! The load was: 12 SL, 2 2AC, 2 3AC, 1 1A/2A, 1PC, 3 GS, 2 SLR, 1 High Capacity parcel van. An interesting info here: the parcel van was loaded on pf. 1. Then 22550 went there, attached itself to the PV and brought it to the rake of GT. We could see the coupling between coaches being done (usually the loco is coupled to the coach).

Other sightings: AJJ WAM4P-6PE 21256 hauled a train which said MYS-TPTY-MAS. This was the MAS-Tirupati express,which the next morning would proceed from Tirupati to Mysore. We saw BZA WAG5A 23458 hauling the Bitragunta pass. (SCR uses many WAG5s in passengers).

Diesel sighting: spanking new KJM WDM3A 17961 dead on pf 8 along with (but not coupled) Cheran rake. This probably came from the Bangalore (SBC) - Patna (PNBE) Sangamitra express, which gets a reversal and loco change at MAS. This loco looked very nice and clean. The seats are very comfy and the cab is spacious. The front of the loco says "SWR, Bangalore division., Krishnarajapuram". Nice logo.

We decided to call it a day, and left MAS (past the heavy security). We decided to go to MSB and take the train to Tiruvanmiyur from there. En route, we saw 2 more locos, coupled, but not mued: JHS WAG5HB 24033(live) and AJJ WAG5HA 23442(dead).

Then back to MSB and the EMU to TYMR, after some waiting, and to our surprise, it was the same rake no 097 by which we started our trip. Nice ending to a great trip!!

For further reports, please refer the menu on to the left side of the page. Thanks for a patient reading!