Get Set ! The Quiz is gonna start any moment now…

You can send in your answers at the end of the First Round to vrijileshATgmail.com .. just wait till all questions are announced!

First Round has 20 questions. 

—-

Q1. Which was the last shed to home the WAG-4 class of locos?

 Q2. In steam locos, what do ST, WT and PT? Expand these.

Q3. Carl Roman Abt a swiss mech engg made an invention. Where can we find that?

Q4. This stn in SR is every railfans deligght. Code VKZ. Name the stn.

Q5. Identify the station from the visual >>

Q6. Whats the significance of 18040 and 16887 loco numbers?

Q7. G9, P5, P7 are three of 5 locos with 3phase AC traction motors. Name the other two.

Q8. …….., Sonepur, Lucknow, Vijayawada, Jhansi. Complete the sequence.

Q9. Its of constant tension type, made of copper-cadmium with a cross section varying from 157 to 165 sqmm, requires cantelivers, messengers and is 5.5m from ground.

Q10. What is the significance of the EMU from Shakurbasti being shown in the snap (visual Q)

Q11. Standard Guage 4′8.5″ is operational in only one place in India. Name.

Q12 Only 2 BG locos in India which have number consisting same digit like XXXXX or YYYYY. Name the sheds.

Q13. Which feature installed on the WDP-4 was removed by Hubli shed because they felt fuel consumption adversely?

Q14. Ambed, Bhirkond, Parchuri, ……….., banewadi, Tike, Math, berdewadi. Fill the blank and complete the sequence.

Q15. Visual Clue: identify the train. Road number of loco has additional points.

Q16. Standard Sleeper coaches are coded WGSCN, if its coded WGSCNY, what additional feature does it have?

Q17. The last Mail train was introduced in 1972. What is the Current name of the train?

Q18. The Alco DL-500 was christened as the ‘World Locomotive’ by Alco. What was it classified as in India?

Q19. 1n 1946, an electoral college was formed by the workers of Bengal Nagpur Railway (ex Assam) with valid voting papers. This was nown as Railway constituency and elected its MLA to Bengal legislative Assembly. Who was the first MLA?

Q20. Name the river on which the bridge is? (visual clue)

—

Now, go ahead and email the answers to vrijileshATgmail.com within 20 mins. Cut off time 3PM IST.

Yep.. IITK is treating us to some awesome lunch.

On the menu.. Gajar Gobi, Matar Paneer, Zeera Aloo, Kadhi, Rice, Naan, papad and salad desserted ably by Rasmalai and amazing Gulab Jamuns!

By Ms Ashima Mehrotra, AGM/Tourism/IRCTC

Just b4 we start.. post ur questions to her as comments.. we’ll ask and get back 2 u all..

–

By the way, IRCTC has extended a sponsorship of Rs 50K to CNB2008 !! Thats tres cool!

–

Aims & strengths of IRCTC.

Popular portal.. www.railtourismindia.com

Buddhist Circuit Trains/Bharat Darshan/ Rail Tour packages/Steam n Hill Charters/Luxury trains/Budget Hotels/Hotel Bookings/Car rentals.

DHR: Endangered World heritage site.

Terms DHR as the first and most outstanding example of a Hill passenger railway!

Rail tour packages to include Sleeper/AC journeys, hotel accomo, road transfers, catering, etc.

Existing rail packages, Charters and joy ride details.

–

For the dedicated commentators: We are noting all ur comments.. and maybe we’ll have a prize for the max comments.. so folks.. get going.. just a request to all.. I dont want the prize to go to one Mr J of MAS.. so folks.. try to beat him to it

Thanx due to everyone who have commented here and appreciated our efforts.. its all for u folks!

Track Side Venting also being introduced.

Comprehensive packages for international packages, children, local tourists, etc.

Tea Train/ Nature Trail/ Heritage Trail/Forest Trail.

Forest trail is an 18km walk from Kurseong stn.. 1 full day trek.

Details of the other trails too..

Proposed activities.. Food plaza, curio shops, Combo of charters and trails, value addition on trains!

Marketing channels: Network of GSA, tourism centres, call centres, website.

Stakeholders: Locals, Hotel/estate owners, Forest Dept, Govt of WB, etc

Assistance required for: Seat blocking on existing trains, mandate for TSV, permission for activity tourism, Developemnt of Batasia as picnic spot, involvement of stake holders.

By Dr Shirish Yande

The Great Khandala Borghat…

A great start with a video of the Old Shatabdi express at Kamshet at the ‘Mile sur’ location. A WCG2 at the helm.

A schematic map of the Bhor.

Brake testing at Monkey Hill. And Nagnath.

1800ft ascent, 28kms, 55-80kmph speed, built in 1860s.

52 tunnels totally. Dn line 24, central 20, up 7.

Ruling grade 1:37

Video of Tunnel 25C to Monkey Hill. A view of the reversing stn seen. Arriving to the Monkey Hill brake testing halt.. can hear the screeching of brakes as the train grinds to a halt.

WCM-1 in ambulance livery with the Deccan Queen.

A 1940s snap of the Deccan Queen with WCP-1 #4000 approaching MHC

A diagram of Speed Sensing device at Monkey Hill.

Catch siding at MHC bifurcation had a Spring Point which directs by default to the catch siding. A short vid of the bifurcation.

Vid thru Palasdhari. Snaps at Nagnath/Thakurwadi/Karjat-Panvel line.

A video of train passing Karjat Station.

–

Another short note: All updates at this blog happening at a max delay of 2 minutes. We are almost live… u cant even call this delayed live.. its just transmission delay!!

By Ajai Banerjee

Lines in Pakistan. Approach from IR. A view of a map extracted from the 90s.

Scan from the 2007 NR TT.

How to reach from Rajasthan.. via Munabao.

Scans from WRTT as well as from Pakistan Railways TT.

Extracts from the 1944 Bradshaw showing the routes/connections/ timings at that time.  

Points about Indo-Pak trains. Thar express.

A brief look on Indo-bangladesh trains.

A very recent map of  Bangla railways. 

Great Presentation on the neighbour railways! 

–

–

Note to all: Get urself all geared up for two events for the non-attendees.

1. Get a chance to crack the Quiz !

2. A chance to vote for the next convention venue. We will have an SMS voting for non-attendees in late afternoon. Keep viewing this blog for further details.

—

Let us know what u feel about the blog and the sessions.. let ur comments come in. We want u folks to join in too.. dont think let-out of the fun happening at IITK!!

A presentation on Chinese Railways by Mr R C Acharya, retd member, Rly Board.

We have just joined back after a nice round of chai kaapi !

Cool stations in China

Escalators and airline style screening of baggage.

Large swanky waiting halls.

Boarding procedures similar to airports, with check-ins, etc.

Some very high speed ‘Orienting’ videos.. somehow that charecter that is so much a part of our good old IR seems to be missing.

One thing that strikes us is large moving spaces on the platforms and concourses.

Swanky alrite, but I prefer the clattering of our trains!

Video of the Maglev. 30kms in 8 mins! Fully computerised monitering station for the Maglev. Reaches 430kmph max.. plain speeeeeed.. speed indicators present in the passenger coaches also.

View of the loco manufacturing plant. Digitised plant. Totally AC plant. All PSU plants in China have been privatised 3yrs back!

—

Just a small note here: Keep refreshing the page every few minutes for updates! Hope u folks are having fun.. we miss all those who could not make it 2 CNB2008!

By Ashish Kuvelkar and Poochi Venkat. Get ready for some scintillating stuff!

To be phased out in just about an year. Mumbai gang: get them on ur cams!

Sachin, Krishnakumar, Jayant, Hrishikesh also involved.

Bhor has a 1 in 37 gradient.

Awesome video presentation of the WCG-2 attaching itself at Karjat, banking till Lonavla and getting detached there.

Another video in KYN shed of fitment of shell onto the bogies using two cranes after an POH.

Awesome stuff folks.

Acknowledgements to IRIEEN, KYN shed, operating staff, LP & ALPs.

By Dr Swaminathan

Diesel electric locos are most complex, challenging, most widely used power.  Almost 80% of traction in the world is diesel.

 First mainline diesels in 1920s

6000HP AC-AC TM locos in 90s.

Hermann Lemp is father of Diesel Locos. he developed the control technology, which brought about a major change.

Mostly, they are 4stroke, however, WDP/G-4 are 2 stroke.

Parts of the diesel loco explained. A brief mention of the main function of each of the parts with a schematic diagram of the loco with the parts differently coloured. The diagrams are similar to Sheeju Chandran’s WDM-2 interactive diagrams. If u have not seen that, just search at irfca.org for Sheeju and you will be able to get that.

Inverters can be IGBT or GTO Thyristor. Heavy electronic/electric talk.

Cooling systems form an important part of the loco which is responsible for efficient performance.

Muffler present in most foreign locos to cut down the noise. Apu has a vote of thanx for the fact that Indian locos are not equipped with these. Long live the acoustics!

The platform, chassis and bogies along with the ‘ballast’ to add to the TE are discussed.

Compressor and air-brake mechanism talked about.

System engineering: vehicle dynamics, integration, configuration.

Typical notch table for diesel locos. Notch/Speed/HP/Time are the tabs under which data is maintained.

Trivia on diesels. Smoking, notching, turbocharger, DB, longest, heaviest, etc.. loads of trivia

Can u believe this? 7.353km long iron ore train with 682 cars, 8 GE made 6k HP diesel locos. 1lakh tonnes of ore!!!

 Ends this session with some Poochi special videos, of diesels notching up! Awesome.

Hello and a warm welcome to you all to day 2 of CNB-2008

Day 2 begins with presentation by S. Srnivas

Originating earning of SBC division show more passenger earning than Freight.

Line capacity utilisation for various sections (14 of them )was shown

Goods trafic is 1.4Million ton outward. It includes containers, automobiles, etc

Originating loading was 1410,000 tons in 06-07

VPH parcel services to Bhopal, HWH, NGC, NDLS and BRC

39crores was the earning from parcel service for 06-07

Personnel : 11400 sanctioed posts in SWR. Operating with 20% less manpower

Salary 34%, Fuel Cost 43% and 23% Repair & Maintainence is the breakup of expenses.

Engineering: All sections have got 52KG rails, Track Geometry Index is 99.76%, Local Crossing total 435, 136 major bridges, and 1 tunnel.

KJM diesel Shed details.

Major projects in SBC division.

New facilities in SBC station.

10lakh litre water recycling plant.

Video enquiry at YPR, with the agent sitting at SBC !! Thats cool.

Wow.. YPR is getting a facelift. So is Bangalore Cantt and even Mandya.

New buildings at Hindupur, Dharmapuri, Yelahanka, Whitefield.

Model Station at Hosur. Thats a cool place for railfanning. Diesel paradise with some grades.

Proposals for increase in speeds in all sections and points to 30kmph

Jaideep’s Model Train

Poochi Venkat’s photo exhibition on his awesome snaps.

—

We will try to answer a few of the questions posted by you all overnight after chatting with the experts! So, hang on..

With that we end the first day blog live from CNB 2008. After these sessions, we would be heading for some sumptous dinner and even more masala talk!! Also, did I mention that we had some “too good” lunch? The rajma was out of the world and Malai Makhan dessert was worth the world. Atleast for that, CNB should be given another shot at 2009 !!

The wifi net connection did give me quite some trouble during the early part of the day and I had to blog using GPRS on my mobile phone!! My thumb just went numb. Hopefully, u did not detect the difference.

Happy reading and hope to see u all tomorrow for an even better day of railfanning!

This is Vrij signing off for the day. C Ya !!