Train Talk (Chai & Choo Choos)

It wasn't really an argument. More a case of collective amnesia. Scotland uses banknotes issued by 3 Scottish banks as well as the Bank of England. Quite often you receive a note in your change that has something on it that you don't recognise. A few years ago the Royal Bank of Scotland issued a £5 note featuring Jack Nicklaus, the golfer.

The Bank of Scotland issues £20 notes with a picture of the Forth Bridge and £10 notes with a picture of the Glenfinnan Viaduct, most recently famous for appearing in Harry Potter Films.

Golghar you came up with banknotes from 3 different countries in 5 minutes! Incredible!

nunc fortunati sumus

Do we really deserve a spreadsheet? I've never tried to attach one - is it not possible via the paperclip icon for 'manage attachments'? Otherwise maybe it could be uploaded to a site like mediafire? I've never used it but that's what Dipy uses for his TAAG PDFs.

I thought that the site rules specify English.

P.S. What does this mean

Oh yes, so they do. I'll ban myself immediately


It's a bilingual pun for Golghar

Ah. Now I get it. Nunc fortunatus sum.

To confess the truth, I just typed in <banknote; "railway bridge"> at Google and had all three hits on the first two pages.


Now you know why the railways haven't adopted the "correct" spelling Lakhnau.

On our fantasy train rides now it's time to turn to South India. In 1964 India had a train diaster comparable to the Tay Bridge disater. It happened at Dhanushkodi. I quote from the article:

.
The town and that last stretch of railway were abandoned after this disaster. I have never been there myself but I have seen a film of the ruined railway station at Dhanushkodi Pier.

As we were just discussing railway bridges here is a link to the Pamban Bridge. It wasn't spared conversion either.
What is the current status of metre gauge in South India? Is there still any metre-gauge track left?. Typing in "Tenkasi-Kollam" at erail yields a detour with change of train. I presume the stretch is undergoing conversion.

Before we head south I propose that we visit Simaria and Mokama Ghats and see the bridge that replaced the ferry. Following Golghar's recommendation in #156 we will allow ourselves a half day to see the sights of Lucknow and then take train 15204 from Lucknow Jn (LJN) to Barauni Junction (BJU), departing 15.00 and arriving 08.30 the next morning. This will be luxury travel for us as there is a 3AC coach.

Iri is quite emphatic about this train x NO Pantry car, x NO Catering so we'll need to load up on parathas or sattu or something suitable. We can then get train 73207, a DEMU, that makes its way over the bridge to Mokama Jn (MKA) at a sedate 16 kmph which should be suitable for sightseeing. It leaves Barauni at 11.30 and gets to Mokama at 12.45.

We now need a route south that takes in Nagpur for Julia's oranges and maybe a narrow gauge side trip. According to the iri atlas Thiruvarur - Karaikudi is still operating as Metre gauge. A comment on the iri forum suggests that this will be the last MG in Tamil Nadu.

An other reason for visiting Nagpur is this

http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...eum-restaurant

I just wanted to add something about Mahmudabad Awadh and the Nawab of Baitar's library. V.S.Naipaul was there and describes the place as well as his meeting with the heir to the Mahmudabad estate in A Million Mutinies Now. The first stop of the Satyagraha Express on the way from Mahmudabad to Shajahanpur is Biswan. That's where the Kapoor estate is located in A Suitable Boy, of course under another name. Biswan appears with its clear name in Seth's Two Lives when he goes into his great uncle's genealogy.

Now as for the Mokamah Bridge. I checked all the passenger trains between Barauni and Mokama (this is how erail spells it). The two DEMUs and the Begusarai-Mokama passenger stop at Hathidah Jn. (HTZ) while the DBG PNBE (Darbhanga-Patna Jn.) passenger stops at Hathidah Jn. Upper (HTZU). I had a look at the track triangle south of the bridge on googlemaps. There they spell the station "Hathida". Now the "h" in "Mokamah" is just an indication of a long "a" at the end of the name, in "Hathidah", on the other hand, the terminal "h" is actually pronounced so dropping it would be an unpardonable solecism in our social circles.
In the sixties the station was located on the triangle itself and there was a platform between the vertex and the bridge with a foot-bridge connecting the two. I presume this platform has become HTZU. Hathidah Jn. itself has shifted ourtside the traingle in the direction of Luckeesarai (I would have thought they had changed the spelling to "Lakkhisarai" by now). So the DEMU we shall be taking will change direction at Hathidah Jn.*

I had never heard of this restaurant on the turntable before. This now becomes a "must visit" for me, not just on a fantasy tour.

*If this is too complicated I'll draw the arrangement and then post it here.
And BTW "Hathidah" means "elephant washed away" - evidently a memory of the Ganga in flood.

WOW!

Amazing!

Me too! Having spent a couple of days in Nagpur, stuck between delayed trains , I can't think of any other reason to go back there (you can load up with oranges on the station platform when passing through!) but a revolving narrow-gauge restaurant - that really is something!

We'll look forward to the review and photos.

Oh come on now. Restaurant, Railway Museum, last days of narrow gauge system. They even play test cricket there.

I'm prepared to brave surly service and mediocre food just for the experience.

Nagpur was once the seat of the Bhonsles, one of the major Maratha (usually misspelt "Mahratta") clans. Unfortunately their territories were annexed by the East India Company and so they weren't carried over into the days of Rolls-Royces and odd-numbered gun salutes. So I don't think there are any revamped neo-rococo palaces there masquerading as "heritage" hotels.

To get back to our journey, you might notice that the first staion after Barauni on the line to Bachhwara is called "Barauni Flag". The village this station serves is called Baro. In Bihari folklore the people of Baro are what the "Wise Men of Gotham" were in English folklore. All sorts of tales of greed, stupidity etc. are attributed to them. In fact I just found this link on the net. (Read the comments!) One was always told that because this name was so stigmatized at one time the villagers insisted that the station be called something else and as the outer signal for Barauni was located there it was named "Barauni Flag".

We have a decision to make. There is a direct train connecting Mokama Jn and Nagpur Jn - Train 12577 Bagmati Super Fast Weekly Express. We could go for that as long as it is Tuesday. Or we might think about going to Dhanbad where we could get the Double Decker to Howrah and do a spot of tram riding before we head south.

Or is there a better suggestion out there?

Baghmati Express is a wonderful suggestion. It takes just under 24 hours.
From Nagpur we can slowly head towards Calcutta. Our first stop should be Raipur. Does Samit10 have a station called Telibandha on the map? Samit05 doesn't. According to erail there are no narrow gauge trains from Raipur anymore but they start at Telibandha which lies 6km before Mana. So it must be a suburb of Raipur. The narrow gauge line to Dhamtari and the branch line from Abhanpur to Rajim are very much in service. We can check those out. Samit05 has a grey line going south from Kurud and terminating at Likhma. Here it is called the Raipur Forest Tramway. I had never heard of it before. The sole hit I got on the net was this anthropological tract by Verrier Elwin. Even if it isn't in service anymore we can look for traces. That would be our second foray into railway archaeology after the Shahjahanpur-Mailani line.