I took this image a month back barely a stone's throw from a railway station. You might wonder, where is the darn station? Well, there are no loop lines there, no extra signals, no proper platform to sit on. Just a ticket counter at the bottom location and a paved area at the top from where to board the train. Nothing except a single train during the whole day stops here. Called a halt station, trains just stop and start, barely stopping for seconds. The bridge zoomed into existence two decades ago to connect two main lines together. [ I have multiple images of trains, relating to all kinds of stuff from stations to train boards that I'll just dump in this thread instead of creating new ones to avoid multiple links].
It's a beauty. Unfortunately, truss bridges fell out of favor here well more than twenty years ago. Nice to see such a shiny new one.
That's a nice angle for your photo, looking along the long bridge with the perspective effect tending to infinity. i like truss bridges too, for their intricate structure and the engineering behind them, and, of course, they look darn good!
The following, I assume, is a model based on the actual train that was introduced in this area in ~1895. It is a narrow gauge steam engine. The GLR stands for Gwalior Light Railway. This is the front of the station opposite which the above loco stands. Despite having a few touristy places to visit, the station itself isn't too big. Only 4 Broad Gauge platforms as of now. Used to have 1 Narrow Gauge one before it was shuttered down for gauge conversion.
Architecture wise, this station lying in the capital of the most populous state/province of India is more captivating. To get a full glimpse, one would need a panoramic image or better yet, an image from top because the small minarets were built to look like chess pawns when looked from the top. I only have a small glimpse of it at night time.
There is a arch bridge built in the northernmost part of India, which is the highest rail bridge in the world currently. It aims to connect the main Indian railway system with a small isolated system in the north. I hope to go there someday. If nothing, impressive vistas, one would get to see.
Majority of folks in my country don't know this, but the first two numbers of a coach tell it's manufacturing date in India. So,a 11XXXX numbered coach means it was manufactured in 2011. This vintage coach, I spotted, in the old city of Varanasi. It's of course, phased out[ I don't think I have seen any pre 2000 era coach in action in the last half decade ] but it was interesting to see a different liveried model. The next image, was taken, I think by Steve McCurry in the 1980s and portrays a bygone era. [ For one, rail and road bridges are now separated with the former electrified and secondly, sadly, the river water is hardly pristine enough in most places to wash anything].
Couple of images from a small village kind of station. Do note the tree in the midst of the platform. In the good old days, this section was a single diesel track section with low height platforms [passengers needed to use the train's steps to go into it] with no over head bridge. The platform also was smaller then and the tree used to naturally provide shade to passengers. When the station was modernized, the tree was left intact in the midst of the bustling platform. Since this is a small station, the train coming on the middle track will skip this station. The maximium speeds permissible on these tracks still are a miserly 110 kmph.
I love that tree! It looks all gnarled and ancient; who knows what kind of history it has seen. Two things to do: model that tree and, if I were 50 or so years younger, climb the real one...
I have seen some stations more having all kinds of old trees on this route, a kind of relic from the past. I assume some of the trees may have been here on this route, as old as the stations themselves, growing as the station and the route grows. The following are couple of trees at a much bigger station some miles down the line. I assume they are a relic from the meter gauge era of this route, when stations were much less maintained.
It's again a 7 year old image I took straight with my then camcorder, hence the pixelated quality. Though I always liked this one for it's composition, the station board, the main building itself [one can see traces of the architecture] and a Eastern Bound full AC train[would cover ~2000 km] in view. It still ran with diesel traction for some distance back then, as visible from the non electric engine.
It's not a bad photo at all. As you say, well-composed but I can't find anything to complain about the resolution. The locomotive looks a lot like an EMD. With a little looking up just now, it seems that it's a class WDP-4B or 4D, EMD model GT46PACe (single cab) or JT46PACe (dual cab), with an EMD 16 cylinder 710 engine. What got my attention is the dynamic brake configuration right behind the cab. Cool!
LONDON CALLING I am not sure if folks here would be interested in the history of Indian railways, but still I will share some snippets. It was the need of the British class to find a way to transport cargo, basically, that invented Railways in India. Passenger transport, especially for Indians, was always second tier in nature and there existed basically coaches [called third class] which were, err, devoid of any seating or anything inside. They were just empty carriages and people fit inside them. Called Third Class, they weren't officially removed until late 1950s, a full decade after India's independence. However, the story starts in early 1850s, when a train ran from Bombay to Thane, two cities that are basically suburbs of each other now. 34 km in distance, 3 steam engines traversed this journey and that kickstarted the Indian railways. To note, that Railways included trains in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well since they were all a contiguous part back then. Narrow gauge routes that existed, mainly,on non heritage routes like middle India were made sometimes, as a response to famine. To provide people work during famines, these routes were thought of and narrow gauge dug through them. This created a unique dilemna much later since Indian railways was a blend of Narrow gauge, tons of meter gauge and broad gauge. Independent princely states in India created their own Railways on either MG or BG. Track conversion to Broad Gauge took much time, well within this century [ though they are sadly gone on most routes ]. There once ran a Frontier Mail between the westernmost fringe of British empire city of Peshawar and Bombay. It was one of the first trains in India to have a rudimentary AC system and had stuff like servants quarters and First class coaches that opened directly onto the platform [ in effect, more spacious than today's First Class on Indian Railways]. It was said that a person could tune his mechanical watch via this train's arrival at a given city. It still runs, though in a truncated form and upto Amritsar only with a different name. If one would have read Around the World in 80 days, they would find that they try to cover India via train but find that the track around Allahabad station wasn't build back then. Some years later, they connected the capital of then British India Calcutta to the most important harbour city Bombay via the Imperial Indian Mail. One of the most important services running in the Empire then, it has been reduced to a fraction of it's former glory now. There were two capitals then Calcutta and summer capital Shimla since the English couldn't bear the summer heat of India. The whole convoy of the government alongwith the Viceroy of India used to travel via the Kalka Mail connecting the two cities. This service was then numbered 01/02 UP/DN, IIRC, for it's significance. It still runs today after over a period of ~150 years on largely the same route.
This is a satellite station lying in the capital of the most populous province of India. Since the main 2 stations were filled to the brim with trains, it is/was built to offload some passenger trains from them. Originally running with a single platform and track, it has been upgraded to 6 platforms now with more work in progress [visible in image 1]. The second image is a sun drenched view of the empty platforms[ since the passenger footfall is still low ]. Image 3 showcases two platforms in view with the Station Board at the extreme end of the platform. Whilst image 4 is just the reverse [from almost the same vantage point] showcasing a diesel engine and a giant [hotel?] in the distance. [The image name 'gtnr' refers to the station code of this station currently called "Gomti Nagar".]
A single track station with a dome like structure for it's entrance instead of a plain one. Few miles/kilometres down the line, it's an image from another station showcasing a WAP-1 basic electric engine. This was heading a passenger train that moved for only ~40 kms. As expected, there were barely any passengers in the train and few even left the train at this station because it was stranded there for so long instead of finally reaching it's destination ~10 kms ahead.
Sorry for the portrait size images instead of proper landscape ones. These are new trains running on Indian tracks. IIRC, they have a continuous coach structure of either 8 coaches or 16 [ this train has a 8 coach config] and no separate engine. This allows for a much faster acceleration and de acceleration. These have a theoretical maximum speed of 180 kph, however the fastest in operation only clocks at 160 due to track issues. This one is slower, clocking in at only maximum of 110 kph. As you can see in the second image, the coaches are 2023 made and they are completely Air conditioned, thus targeting the premium segment.
