An unexpected spotting!

The day being a holiday, I had the job of dropping my Dad at his office. There two different routes from My dad's office to my home. One is a direct road (the Mumbai-Pune Highway), while the other one is a bit long but runs parallel to the Panvel-JNPT Railway line. I preferred the second for one reason that I hadn't traveled on that road after October 2006 - That is indeed a pretty long time! It is yet another normal two-laned state highway. There is enough traffic on this road (Trucks, buses, autos, etc!). I still managed 80-90 kmph on that road. The road is well surfaced, and the drive was really comfortable. Sometime into the drive, the railway line towards Jasai came close to the road.
Just while driving, I noticed that the Railway level cross at Bambaipada (A small village on the highway) was closing down - So a train was on the way. I drove a few kilometres ahead, and stopped at a Road-Over-Bridge. My mom was accompanying me, and she sat 'guard' for the car! I stood on the bridge for the train to approach. The UP line was blocked (by a red banner kept across the railway crossing at Bambaipada), and hence the train was surely approaching on the Down line. Soon, I saw a train at a distance...

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...the approach sequence was simply beautiful. The loco came closed, and my shutter-happy camera simply couldn't resist the loco. She was...

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...WAG5 #24462 from Valsad Electric Loco Shed on Western Railway. So that was perhaps my first sighting of a WAG5 of Valsad loco shed. I looked at the other direction, and the line had a sharp left curve after that bridge.

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The train looked beautiful at the curve! Valsad Loco shed earlier had only AC/DC locos (WCAM1/2/2P) all working on the Western Railway main line (and regularly working trains in the Gujarat-Pune section, and often seen with Tanker/freight trains on CR main line/JNPT line). About a few years (2-3) back, a few WAG5s were allotted to Valsad.

After the spotting, I was back at my car. I took a turn at Gavhan Phata, about a kilometre from the place I took that photographs, and drove towards my home. The location is photogenic, but the problem is that only Freight trains are operational, and hence there is no point in waiting under the hot sun for trains!

That is all for the day...bye!

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