Train Talk (Chai & Choo Choos)

Why?

Is that what Swiss people think crocodiles look like?

1958, I didnt realise it was that old, pre Noggin even. But I also didnt realise Oliver Postgate had left us. All of us that grew up with those programmes owe that guy a great deal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_%28locomotive%29

That line is now BG. I think that it is a recent conversion as there was some posting a few months back about Churu now having a direct link to Delhi. The Churu - Ringas - Jaipur line is still MG. I got some shots of it at the Jaipur end in February this year but didn't get the chance to travel.

Thanks for the various MG line suggestions. We are getting into the serious planning phase for 2013 and will be looking to put at least one of them in.

So without the Sugauli Treaty there would have been no Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Additional
It is a WCG1 Goods loco according to this Wiki link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomot...ctric_traction

And no Gurkhas in the British Army either!


Between Sagauli and Muzaffarpur lies Motihari. The station is called "Bapudham Motihari" because of its association with Gandhi's 1919 campaign there. This is also the birthplace of Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). This is what the house in which his parents lived then looked like some years ago. According to some recent news items the government of Bihar plans to turn the house into a museum. Blair Sr. was an opium collector. The opium trade was a state monopoly that the Raj had inherited from the Company. I hope they make it into a display for the opium industry as it existed at the time.
Soon after Eric Blair was born his father was transferred to Tehta, which is a station on the Patna-Gaya line (always BG - Bihar south of the Ganga only had BG and NG except for the short MG section from Bhagalpur to Barari Ghat and the rail ferry). I don't know if anyone has tried to locate the house in Tehta where the family lived or whether it is still standing.

I just found out that the Loharu-Sikar line is still MG. There is a Loharu-Jaipur Express (No. 19736) that leaves Loharu at 6:50 and reaches Jaipur at 13:15. At one time there used to be two express trains a day between Loharu and Sawai Madhopur via Sikar, Ringas (formerly spelt "Reengus"*) and Jaipur.

* erail spells it "Ringus" which is neither here nor there.

I just love some of the strangely worded notices that one spots while travelling by train in India. This one was stencilled onto the inside of a coach on the Matheran hill railway.

I should, perhaps, explain that "bogies" has a different meaning in much of the UK & Ireland.

Thank you Dave W for pointing this thread out to me - pity he had not done it sooner and I might have saved you a few pages on conjecture! Never mind I found the somewhat 'scattergun' approach very entertaining.

Just a few points - Thanks to paramiyer for clearing up the check rail discussion.

The 'bibles' on the Indian narrow gauge [and BG and MG] are the Hugh Hughes and Frank Jux books 'Steam Locomotives in India' published in three volumes by the Continental Railway Circle. Obviously they do not cover the current situation but you can see the extent of the MG and NG as it was in the 1970's.Lawrence Marshall's book - 'Indian Narrow Gauge Steam Remembered' is also very informative but a mite expensive at £30.

The Kangra Valley line is 2'6'' gauge and used the same type of steam locomotives as the Kalka-Simla line [ZF class 2-6-2 tanks]. You can check out the locomotives currently used on all the existing NG lines through joining the IRFCA [Indian Railfans Club - Google it]. They have a database showing the allocation of all NG locomotives.

The North West was the heart of NG territory and I think no-one has mentioned the system that existed at Dabhoi[ known as the the Crewe of narrow gauge which will give UK members some idea of the frequency of trains] At its height this had six branches radiating from Dabhoi itself with branches off some of those branches. This system is being gradually closed or converted to BG. I think the latter has reached Pratapnagar where the NG locoworks is situated.There were another seven NG lines in that area in the 1970s including the Nadiad - Kapadvanj line

The Gwalior and Dholpur lines were also quite extensive and I think both still operate. The lines around Nagpur are also suffering from gauge conversion but some still operate and this system is almost as extensive as the Dabhoi one.

Finally -doesn't Steve Ber look much younger than he did when he took part in the GCIRC? Must have had his prayers answered in the temples we visited!

You can see some steam era photos of the Indian narrow gauge on my Zenfolio site - they include a photo of the Matheran Queen railbus.

http://mickpope.zenfolio.com/f63169718

Also some photos of the broad gauge, metre gauge including Jaipur to follow soon. There is also an album for industrial steam including some narrow gauge.You need to go to the 'All my photos' section and find the appropriate gallery.I have some videos which one day I will get round to posting on Youtube although there is one of mine already there of the Bilamora - Waghai line

Mick

Welcome. It's always good to have an old pro aboard.

We won't tell IRFCA that you've signed up with the amateurs.

Thanks for the link to your photos. That's tomorrow's good deeds down the swanny.

There are some great pics of the Gwalior NG on a link on this post.

Train Talk (Chai & Choo Choos)

That isn't Steve Ber but the missing Irishman Jonathan Spollen.

I just tried checking on erail if the Ankleshwar-Rajpipla line was still running but the site didn't know any station called "Rajpipla". Then I tried indiarailinfo and found this. It doesn't show a stop at Jhagadia. Does the branch to Netrang still exist?

Golghar - That train number (061WR) looks odd. I thought that they were all 5 digits these days. There is a forum entry on that page dated September 2011 which says that the line is under gauge conversion.

Mick - Somebody is about to publish a book about the Dhaboi lines. there was something about it on the Narrow Gauge Railway Society forum about a month ago.

Soon one can start undertaking "archaeological expeditions" to discover traces of old narrow gauge lines. I remember the old Bakhtiarpur-Rajgir Kund line when it was still a narrow-gauge line run by the Martin Burn Railways. The line shared the embankment with the motor road. Then in the early 60s the broad gauge line was built (with fewer stations) on its own embankment some distance away from the road and the narrow-gauge line closed but some of the buildings, signal-boxes etc. of the old line were left standing. The Fatuha (formerly spelt "Futwa")-Islampur and the Ara (Arrah)-Sasaram (they still haven't "corrected" the spelling to "Sahasram") line were closed, initially without any replacement. The broad-gauge lines came much later. There must still be traces of the old lines as on the Shahdara-Saharanpur line.

There exists a photo of me next to that very notice . I'm easily amused .



ScouserMick I found your photo of the Matheran Queen railbus - she's beautiful . Was this actually running when you took the pic? Is it still running?

Please don't boot me out of this thread, but can someone explain in words of one syllable what is meant by railbus or railcar? Is it just that it is one 'thing' which contains both engine and seating, and not pulling anything?

I would have said that a railcar is just part of DMU/EMU i.e. diesel or electrical multiple units (actually, most diesel things are technically diesel-electrics in that their diesel engine is used to make electrical current that then drives an electric motor on the bogies, the kind that trains go on not the ones up your nose).
Oh correction on that, those metro cammell things I grew up on were diesel mechanical, but all those big diesel engines, or most of them anyway, and most of any modern DMUs, do this electricity stuff to get power to the wheels.
A railbus sounds like something a railway operator might term some frequent service of, well, an E or DMU.
As oppose to something like this

By Jess and Mike
which has been termed a "trus".(prob should be double s but then it would be something you might wear or keep a bridge together with or something)
BUT
Wikipedia claims that this

is a historic railcar. It claims that any self propelled people-carrying railway vehicle is a "railcar".

All these weird things that are clearly road vehicles that have found themselves onto railways will, with some extra mechanics, drive the wheels directly from the internal combustion engine, and are clearly bonkers and so they really should have some kind of special name.
May be the experts can clear that up.


As for the Matheran Queen, which is awesome isnt it, I very much doubt it's running today though I dont really know. There is one on the line up to shimla that is theoretically still operational though I dont think it's been seen in action for sometime.

Well, wiki now informs me that a railbus is what I've called a "trus"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railbus
"shares many of the features of a road bus"

so there you have it, a railcar is an individual carriage in a multiple unit and looks like it's built for the job.
and these weird things are railbuses. though that sort of contradicts the railcar page which claimes that that American thing is an historic railcar.
subject to me being corrected tomorrow when the lads come back.

Mark, thankyou! I will try to digest this properly tomorrow .

... or the part of a tomato plant which holds the fruit. All those supermarkets selling vine-tomatoes have it wrong. Tomatoes don't grow on vines; they grow on trusses



PS, with my mod hat on - are they your own photos? If not, could you credit the source by providing a link please. I apologise if they are your own photos.

Now you are starting to earn your membership status.