Part 4:-
Our halt at Panvel was just around 5 to 7 mins and soon were on the Panvel Outer taking the middle lane of an odd shaped fork track if you were to consider taking the left will take you towards Karjat while the run one takes a big turn towards JNPT….
The train was blasting continuously at...
more... good speeds and tried to capture a few curves before Roha… Apta gave us a wonderful C shaped view of our train. As my RF thirst grew more, I checked if there was a big C curve somewhere near Roha… and there it was just after Jite when I got the gem of the views with my coach positioned 17 th from the engine… The train was doing a decent speed now across the full 180 degree curve n I maintained my balance and caught it in my mobile ( Video will be uploaded soon…). As the curve drew an end, I could see a straight second line cutting across the fields giving it a D shape. Mumbai bound people will soon lose this spectacular curve when the second line becomes operational…
The journey to catch the train early in the morning and the coolness of the AC berth was enough to put me in a slumber.
I woke an hour later only to know that we have overtaken Diva Sawantwadi passenger as we were rushed through a series of deep roaring tunnels. I felt miserable as we were losing on the time as we made an unscheduled halt at Diwan Khavti to allow Netravati Express to pass … We were now running more than an hour late and Mandovi took a quick halt at Khed where we only had a RMV van for company …
These were followed by Chiplun n Sangameshwar Road (Crossed a BOXN rake here) and we still cruised at a decent speed to reach Ratnagiri a good 80 minutes late…. We had our food packed with us as our earlier plan was to catch Mangalore… So had to satisfy ourselves with a Medu Vada n some Tomato Soup……
To be continued,….
Pics from Sangameshwar Road ….