Rails, Railfanning and Gastronomy Part 1

The beautiful region to the West of the Sahyadris, which is believed to be gifted to the mighty avatar of Lord Vishnu , Parashuram has always been a delight to both foodies and railfans. The delectable cuisine that the Malwani region with its exotic dishes like the Mori Masala, Paplet Saar, Phanasachi Bhaji, Solkadi, and the delicious Malwani Malpua is a delight for the tastebuds and the Konkan line is nothing but a rail fans delight. Offering the widest range of  variety of trains like Rajdhani, Janshatabdi, Tejas, Double Decker , RoRo, this line is a photographers delight, even for amateur photographers. The line is indeed an engineering marvel for the sheer amount of effort put into making this line, boring through tunnels, and bridging the many valleys and rivers that dot this line.

Athe new year dawned a few months ago, I had made a personal checklist. Call it resolutions if you will. A few items on the list were
1. Reduce weight
2. Avoid junk food
3. Travel by a WAP 5 hauled train
4. Travel by Deccan Queen
5. Relish the food delights on Mandovi
6. Visit Konkan
and thus began a lengthy list. While the first two points remain unfulfilled as of now, the next two came true , courtesy BRC 2018.

Now, travelling on Konkan and Mandovi proved to be a problem. How do you get leaves for the same? Good friend and fellow RF, Akshay Inamdar and me made a plan to visit the Konkan in August, but I had to back out due to other circumstances but Akshay had made the booking for the same , but he too had to cancel the trip due to some unforeseen circumstances.

The October 2nd extended weekend provided the next best chance to explore the diesel heaven that the Konkan and thus, we chalked out an itinerary, replete with a lot of action, food exploration and a bit of trekking to spend some time at the legendary Panval Viaduct.