My trip was planned with a few clear goals in mind.
I started on my trip on the evening of Sept 19, 2014 which also happens to be my mother's birthday. I went to my mother's house to wish her before heading to the railway station. Sahana met me there and offered to drop me at the railway station on her scooter which I accepted. Without the slightest bit of warning, however, it started raining on our way to the station. We were completely unprepared for it and both of us ended up getting partly wet. By the time I got off near the station, the rain had subsided to a drizzle and since I had my jacket on, I decided to walk the rest of the distance. Sahana took out her raincoat which was packed into her glove compartment and headed back home. I didn't have time to go to the front of the train and get a glimpse (or a camera shot) of the twin locomotives that were scheduled to power my train (Karnataka Exp).I located my coach and berth and settled down for the train to start. Being a fairly important train, it started on time at 7:20pm. I had a lower berth and the other three berths in my section were unoccupied, so that was a nice start!
- Travel to the western-most station on the Indian railway. This is Okha. The definition of "western-most" varies a bit and I want to clarify upfront that I used the definition as in "the western-most termination point on the Indian Railway network'. There is a station called Varvala which is actually at a more western longitude than Okha but it's just a small transit station, not a terminus like Okha.
- Travel on the Kasara Ghat section. This is a small ghat section between Kasara and Igatpuri on the Western Railway line. It is supposed to be very scenic, especially just after the monsoon.
- Travel on a metre gauge line. Some or most of the older folk in India who like traveling by trains may recall that India used to have three gauges of trains (gauge as defined by the width of the rails/tracks), namely, Broad, Metre & Narrow. For the past 20 years or so, Indian railways have been working on 'Project Unigauge' which aims to convert all railway lines across the country to Broad Gauge. Since the Metre Gauge and Narrow Gauge trains are a dying breed, I wanted to keep the memory intact by traveling by one of the Metre Gauge trains. There is a train in Maharashtra between Khandwa and Akola which is a Metre Gauge train. and that's the one I wanted to travel in.
- On the line between Khandwa and Akola, there is a place called Dhulghat Spiral which is a section of the railway track that loops back under itself. It's more of a matter of interest for a train buff like me than anything else, so I wanted to travel on that section.
- Travel on any Rajdhani Express in First Class AC, the premier class of train travel in India.
I started on my trip on the evening of Sept 19, 2014 which also happens to be my mother's birthday. I went to my mother's house to wish her before heading to the railway station. Sahana met me there and offered to drop me at the railway station on her scooter which I accepted. Without the slightest bit of warning, however, it started raining on our way to the station. We were completely unprepared for it and both of us ended up getting partly wet. By the time I got off near the station, the rain had subsided to a drizzle and since I had my jacket on, I decided to walk the rest of the distance. Sahana took out her raincoat which was packed into her glove compartment and headed back home. I didn't have time to go to the front of the train and get a glimpse (or a camera shot) of the twin locomotives that were scheduled to power my train (Karnataka Exp).I located my coach and berth and settled down for the train to start. Being a fairly important train, it started on time at 7:20pm. I had a lower berth and the other three berths in my section were unoccupied, so that was a nice start!
