On the 164th Birthday of the Indian Railways, I did a journey on one of the most prestigious trains of the Central Railway - the Deccan Queen.
The journey was from Khandala to Dadar on board the 12124 Pune Junction - Mumbai CST Deccan Queen Express. This presentation is a photo and video compilation of the journey.
More WCAM-2P locomotives from Kalyan are getting painted in the new chocolate brown with yellow lightning stripes livery. I was lucky to get one of these as my locomotive on that day. It was Kalyan WCAM-2P (21877) hauling my train. The journey description can be seen as follows :
I had booked my ticket from Lonavala to Mumbai CST but I decided to board at Khandala (since it was closer to where I was staying). At 8:15 am, the Deccan Queen slowly rolled into Khandala and halted for her first brake testing halt while descending the ghats. I boarded, and in few seconds, we started the descent. The train was crowded and with difficulty, I managed to find a door to stand at by the time we reached Monkeyhill for our next brake testing halt. I took a video of the departure from Monkeyhill showing the catch sidings. You can see what will happen to a train if its brakes fail. I also did coverage on the tunnels and curves between Monkeyill and Thakurwadi, but the mountain was on my side so I did not get much scenery. The speed limit of the ghat is 60 km/hr. After Jambrung, when the valley was there, have a look at beautiful videos of the Deccan Queen rolling down the ghat through tunnels and curves and the villages in the valley. On the final curve of the ghat we also crossed the Mumbai LTT - Vishakapatnam Express hauled by double diesel engines going towards Lonavala. Finally, we reached the bottom of the ghat and skipped Karjat slowly at 9:00 am.
After Karjat we immediately picked up speed to our MPS (maximum permissible speed) of 105 km/hr. Bhivpuri Road was blown away. We slowed down at Neral due to a restriction because of overhead equipment. After Neral once again we were at full speed. The video of ripping apart Ambernath can be seen. Before Kalyan we came to a halt due to a freight train ahead of us not giving clearance. Kalyan Junction was passed at 9:35 am.
After leaving Kalyan while we were picking up speed, we overtook a container goods train which had an Ajni WAG-9H locomotive and simultaneously crossed an LPG train with a WAG-7 from Ludhiana. We were again at full speed at Dombivli. We overtook the Nizamuddin - Ernakulam Mangala Lakshadweep Express before Diva. The Diva level crossing was also passed quickly and the Parsik tunnel was done at about 80 km/hr. The 1316 meter long tunnel was passed in 60 seconds. Thane was also skipped at 9:52 am at a speed of 80 km/hr and can be seen in the video. But once we left Thane, the Queen reached 105 km/hr in no time and raced past all the stations. Mulund, Bhandup, Vikhroli, Ghatkopar were all gone in seconds. However due to a red signal before Kurla, we slowed down. But then picked up speed again and cruised till Dadar. At 10:10 am, we pulled into Dadar and came to a smooth halt.
Overall, it was a wonderful run. The scenery of the ghats, combined with the terrific run in suburban Mumbai made it a great journey. And it was special since it was done on 16th April, 2017, 164 years after the first train in India ran between Bombay Victoria Terminus (now CST) and Thana (now Thane). I’m sure the train easily reached Mumbai CST at its scheduled time of 10:25 am. Cheers to the crew for such an amazing journey and also to the Deccan Queen and the brown WCAM-2P locomotive for the lovely performance.
Deccan Queen is known for the dining car on board the train, however I skipped breakfast since I would lose my place to stand at the door. The dining car was right in front of my coach and the letters DC can be seen on the coach in front in the videos.
Date of video: 16th April, 2017
