The BRC Broadway II

Part 1- Home Shed to Work Shed

Dates were announced for the convention registration, and I, I was lying in a hospital bed, down with a bad case of skin allergies. With the hope that I would recover well by then , I went ahead and registered.

Now, for any Rail fan, a trip to the convention means a long and elaborate planning with the gang, visiting a few places of interest and yes ,if MG or NG exists in that state, pay homage and enjoy that one last ride on them before they are consignees to the history books. I do feel bad to think that my kids will not know the rhythmic swaying of the MG coaches or the jigs and bobs of the NG.

Sadly, for this trip, I was not sure of how my onward journey would be , but for the Vadodara Mumbai run, I knew that it had to be on only one train, the Shatabdi. Thus, for the first time in my life, I booked a ticket on the opening day of ARP. That was done and dusted and the work pressures meant I had totally forgotten my onward ticket bookings!!!.

My mother reminded me that I had to make the booking and the doubling works put an end to my original plan of taking Gol Gumbaz to Solapur and the Solapur Intercity from there to Pune. And thus, the ever dependable Udyan Express came to my rescue, and promptly, a 3A ticket was booked for the 6th.

It is well known that, the wait for any good thing to happen is excruciatingly long and the month of January passed by so painfully slow that I wondered if time had indeed stopped working

Somehow, the 6th of February and in the true spirit of Railfanning* I decided to board the 16232 Mysore Mayiladuthurai Express from Kengeri to KSR Bengaluru. The train arrived promptly by 5 40 pm to Kengeri with its customary link of Erode WDP 4D and today, 40241 was doing the honours

The ED loco for our 16232

The train got the starter only after a 10 minute long halt but it appeared as thought our pilot wanted to get back in time for his dinner and he was on his best.The EMD put out a great show of humming and honking, only to be stopped at Nayandahalli as the platform at Bangalore would be occupied by the Queen of the Bangalore Mysore line, Chamundi Express. At Nayandahalli, the pretender to the throne, Vishwamanava Express went past with one of KJMs ALCOs 13367. At SBC Home, the Queen herself crossed us with 12636 12028 KJM WDG 4 twins. 

A WAG 7, a WAP 7 and the power for the night's Island Express 22669 were standing on the stabling lines next to Platform 5, and next to these beasts was my train, Udyan Express, which in its earlier days would have been cared for in pitlines next to it. Today, it undergoes maintenance at Solapur and has a RSA with Siddeshwar Express.

I took the ramp FOB at the BNC end of PF 5 and upon reaching PF 1, I saw the Delhi bound Raja, the Karnataka Express with a Pune WDG 4 12381 ready for his long trip to the plains of Ganga. On the erstwhile platform, where the tiny NG train used to depart for the Gold Fields of Kolar in the days of Yore, BG beasts stood. The line up included 40157 PUNE WDP 4D, 40446 GOC WDP 4D & PUNE ALCO twins 11182 and 18951 along with the odd man out 30354 RPM WAP 7.

After the king departed, I made a quick visit to the loco siding and to my joy, the ALCO twins had moved out, meaning it was the power for Udyan that day. 36312 shunted in Udyan and after a slighly delayed start, we were off and I was going to be making my debut at an IRFCA Convention!!

A quick dinner of home made Rotis and onion thokku was polished off, the TTE checked our tickets and I climbed up to my UB, for a good night's sleep for, a long day lay ahead.

I woke up and went near the door and saw a parallel action. My mind was rather groggy and could't really make out what train it was, plus, I was not wearing my specs which made things rather difficult. Was it an Express train, or was it a BCNA wagon? To set things right, I picked up my glasses from my bag and that cleared things up. It was the Yesvantpur bound Kacheguda Yesvantpur Express that was coming in for a reversal and a traction change. The last time, I had travelled on it a couple of years back, it used to get EMDs end to end, A change of things to come!!

Anyway, I was done