An evening at LTT

While most "normal" people would end up spending an evening at a restaurant or a mall or by the sea, I preferred to go to LTT (Lokmanya Tilak Terminus near Kurla) on the Saturday. The sole purpose was to spot some WDMs (aka diesel locomotives).

Some people may not have realised this: There is a total lack of WDM-hauled trains on the Western railway Mumbai-suburban line. Those ugly looking (and not too great sounding) WCAMs have replaced all the WDMs. Occasionally, we do spot a WDS-2 on the Western line, but a WDM is a WDM.

(For a nice sound clip recorded within a WDM2A cab, click here.
For seeing what a WDM2 looks like, click here. Note that in this picture, the WDM2 is SHF (Short Hood Forward.))

The Central railway suburban lines do see quite a few WDMs, but most of these are headed into the LTT. Konkan railway trains are almost always hauled by WDMs and these trains terminate/start at LTT. (There is a workshop at Parel where one can spot some WDMs as well as WDS-6 as well as steam locos. Also, at CSTM, one can see some WDMs in the yard.). For a close-up and a "live" WDM, LTT is the best in suburban Mumbai.

So, I reached LTT at about 16:20 and a scan of the platform revealed no activity. Some people travelling to the North were sleeping on the platform or lazying about; others had already formed a line (for the unreserved coach) at the far end of the platform. Luckily, some thoughtful official had put up a small shamiana in the middle of the platform to provide these people some shelter from the hot summer sun (since there was no roof above at that end of the platform).

At about 16:30, there was an announcement that the Trivandrum-LTT Netravati had left Panvel and would be reaching LTT soon. At 17:10, another announcement confirmed that this train had reached and left Thane. Quite useful information I thought. But, no sooner had this announcement been made, the platform came alive. One could see some dozen porters get ready for "the action". They had the luggage trolleys with them. At the same time, some tens of people who had come to receive their relatives also started to enter the platform. Most of these latter were, of course, typical South people.

At 17:20 finally, I could spot the ERS (Ernakulam Road South) shed WDM2 snaking its way slowly onto the platform. The dull-orange livery of EKM is nothing compared to the bright-red Erode-shed liveries. The WDM2 was hauling the train LHF (Long Hood Forward). (It is considered to be quite uncomfortable to drive a WDM2 LHF because of visibility problem. The long hood obstructs the driver's vision from the cab and objects near the loco cannot be seen.)

As it neared the end of the platform (final destination), it stopped well short of the buffers. I took a long look at the WDM2 and wondered from what angle I must photograph it (the next time).

I nodded my head and left before the crowd could spill out from the platforms. I took the local Harbour to Govandi from the nearby Tilak Nagar (suburban) station.