Any body travelled on Murtajapur-Achalpur branch line

pranavganesh

I am inundating the forum with a lot of question.... but thats what it is for... Right

Am coming back to India and my travelling streaks are showing up again...

Now there was this friend i met, who hails from Nagpur and he was telling me that on Nagpur-Mumbai route there is this station named Murtajapur.... and there is a branch line from Murtajapur to Achalpur

Now he said that till 2002, the only private passenger railway of India used to run on this branch line (perhaps the name was shanta railways)....and was undergoing a huge financial duress and the owners were trying to keep it afloat

Has anybody travelled on this railway

Had it survived uptill now

If survived.... is it worth an experience (going to Murtajapur and investing 3 days)

Please let me know, and are there anyother private passenger railways in India and where... (i know quite a few private freight railways do exist in India)

regards

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steven_ber

From the 2006 timetable.

Going north from Murtajapur.

Train 637 departs Murtajapur daily at 07:15 and gets to Achalpur at 10:45.

Train 638 departs Achalpur daily at 11:15 and gets to Murtajapur at 14:45.

This is a narrow gauge line, I've been on a few of the narrow gauge lines (though none in this region) and the carriages are normally very old wooden carriages with wooden seats, but don't let that put you off, it's an amazing experience.



There is another narrow gauge line running south from Murtajapur.

Train 631 departs Murtajapur daily at 07:05 and gets to Yavatmal at 11:40.

Train 632 departs Yavatmal daily at 12:10 and gets to Murtajapur at 16:25.

Experience tells me that you should expect these trains to arrive back at Murtajapur at least an hour late.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of these little branch lines in India, though I've no idea if any are privatly owned.

I have some photos in the photo gallery of a couple of these narrow gauge trains I tried in Gujarat and West Bengal.

Also a tiny steam engine from a mine in Upper Assam.

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steven_ber

Try the following maps to help you on your journey; they’re HUGE, so I hope you're not on a dial-up connection.

This one covers the northern part of the Murtajapur - Achalpur route.

Note, on the map Achalpur has a different name, Ellichpur. (bottom left of map)

Gawilgarh fort (2 squares west and 1.5 squares north of Ellichpur) looks really interesting, on a high hill and walled.

All the deserted villages surrounding Ellichpur must be worth some investigation.


This map shows the rest of the line, plus most of the Murtajapur - Yavatmal line.

Start following the line from the top centre of the map, just north of Daryapur.


I have attached the 2 full train timetables below to help with the maps.

Damn, I want to go to this area now, you’ll have to tell us all about it.

Attached Thumbnails

   

achalpur

Hi there,

I am from achalpur and have travelled many times from Achalpur to Murtijapur by Passenger Train which is fondly known as Shakuntala Express. (Shakuntala was the queen of Vidarbha region).

Shakuntala was a privately owned local train which was owned by some British Company. Basic objective behind laying the Achalpur Murtijapur train route was to take high quality cotton/Orange from Achalpur region to Murtijapur which has direct connectivity to Bombay and then to England.

Recently the train was handed over to the Indian Railways.

steven_ber

Thanks for the info and update, welcome to indiamike.

rushijoshi

Hi Steve,

Through you all Posts I found you know lot about Indian Railway.

If you are applying for jon in IR, then you will definately get it.

Regards
Rushi