Phantom comes to Teakland …

 

railfans do trips, for enjoying the rail and its ways..and the fans undertake quite a trouble to make it happen. teakland tour happened as an offshoot from another trip that some of us on railkerala had been planning. the beauty of this trip was that personal emergencies combined with calendars that show free slots, can still be a powerful combination that make a trip possible

feb 10th, 2012... one day before the 2nd saturday holiday in february and a day before the much planned kozhikode get-together of railkerala. jay-TVC, binai-TCR, vibin-SBC, we all decided to quickly visit the teakland, incidentally this has been a route that all three of us havent visited and each been longing to see. i had a personal emergency and had to be in palakkad, so just spun the idea around with jay & binai who immediately said yes. three of us decided to meet at shornur and then decide from thereon. i reached palakkad on 10th morning on the trivandrum weekly express... got a lift from my uncle, who took me straight to a idli & tea shop at sultanpet, it was just 0330 hrs. it was an awesome tea but couldnt bear the dreadful mosqi's enjoying themselves on my blood. cut it short, after giving some quick sleep, got ready and hit the olavakkot station, bought a express ticket. rapti was my train, however the cbe-maq passenger rolled in early to pf1 and the empty seats were too tempting, i decided to get in and seat myself. to my unpleasant experience, an old person was sitting opp me and he was drunk... so decided to move around and found another seat. couple of mins later, rapti rolled onto pf2 and i decided to make a run for it, as it would take me to srr faster. so off i went grabbed a seat on s6 coach. i was mindful of the fact that i was in kerala and weird rules exist where you cant board a particular coach with II class ticket... but i needed to rest for the 1 hour journey to srr, so i sat in and started reading my newspaper... times of india palakkad edition. the times looked thin and scantily colored horrible texture of the paper, in-comparison to what we get in bangalore. the train started its journey and i got into some bit of a conversation with my fellow passenger, who was a season ticket holder. our conversations stretched from american to iran and down to associated trouble from mullaperiyar. he was of the opinion that tamilnadu was ill-treating the malayali traders - his fraternity - in coimbatore and other parts of tn. he saw no justification in that, when tamils in kerala were not being harmed. kerala not accepting tn produces of vegetables, meat etc were good to him, as he felt imports from karnataka & ap were cheaper. i gave him a profoudn yes and opined that yes, its time tn's medhavittam is given a dust-bin and their goods be send back ... atleast then our kerala manavar's will cultivate and produce stuff. as a videsha malayali, i know its a bit over the moon to expect that but i guess its not a hype

mid-way through our conversation, my eyes was inspecting the beauty of bharathapuzha fed land.. they look haritha green, but have started drying up because the sun is already dressing to shine its armour. talking about the armour, who best can be the armour of railways, other than the tte... so incame with a bang, a lady about 45-50 yrs, wearing a bag and holding a receipt book, she came in and stretched a palm at me with her ball-point pen looking at my eyes. i realise then its for the travelling ticket, she collects it from me looks deeply at the paper and scribbles across it. next she asks my fellow passenger and he gives his season pass, which wasnt received well by the examiner. she takes a seat and then get the ticket of an other passenger duo, who was comfy sitting on the slb,... they were from north india and had boarded the train from cbe.. they guys were travelling with 2nd class ticket to ers and hence had to shell out 350 rs each... wow thats a loot. she didnt blink her eyes, took the money from the chaps and wrote out the receipt. in her passing comments to the st traveller, she said ' ningal idhil yatra cheyyan paadilla keto'

well im still reaching shornur... and as i enter the y, i can spot some locos in the yard, first i passed was a ers wdg3a just below the overbridge, then a wap1 from rpm and some more locos all around. my breakfast i realised wasnt done, so went about the station building and got myself a idlie, vada combo. starkly surprised at the size of the stuff, i just gobbled it up...

to reach teakland, we had to take the passenger and i went to the ticket counter to buy our tickets... the rush was nothing abnormal, its always crowded here i reckon. our nation is overflowing with people and no q at any place is short these days, as it seems. even at a kfc counter where 8 pieces of chicken is sold at 700 rs, you will find the rush being unbearable for comfort... well, reality bites... as i was waiting ernadu exp rolled into the station, after many other trains, one after other... srr is indeed a true junction and quite a busy one at that. i met up with jay & binai and then collected our parcels for lunch... our rake the passenger train was waiting on pf1.

the train left the station at 1200 hrs and it was a very quite starting....... we run right and ran parallel with the kozhikodan line for a while and then ran into the sidelined teak bunds. the run was quite a noisy and interesting one. the coaches were getting filled as we ran through the country side and that gave us a good sense that this line is very much in demand and teakland really yearns for some more trains, unfortunately the line is single and not maintained properly too.... kerala tiled houses passed by and some paddy fields which are already nearing being parched. the teaks have shed leaves and look woody. not a single place we had to wait for signals, except for the lone crossing station. we waited at this station for the pairing train to pass and then we chugged away, often clicking some pics and then a little later we decided to finish our lunch too. our non-veg lunch of rice & fish curry was quite a interesting pack.... there was one mathi fry and the ' fish curry ' had only chaar and no fish in it.. can you beat this, in the land of fish curry, we were given this raw deal.

pulled into teakland and it was a serene atmosphere there, we were greeted by a 140 yr old rosewood and a ers wdm3a with its rajya-rani rake. our rake parked onto the line, i say this because there is no platform per se to alight. the sun wasnt at its best, so it wasnt very hot, we bought some coke and the shutterbugs went clickety all around. we even spotted a sardarji at this station. it was time to say bye byes to teakland as our strong-man the wdm3a from ers koooooed and said, we need to go and back to srr.
jay & binai sat in the same rake that took them to ers, with a loco change. the single one gave way to a twin, well almost because the wdg3a had a dead wdm3a and i ran into the maq-cbe passenger which was already waiting at another pf.... my journey was quite interesting as it was all roachified, but thankfully exactly at 1740 i reached palakkad.

we planned overnight and made it happen and teakland travel was quite a good get-together for us, it gave me a good break and got 3 of us to cherish our wish. Nilambur we love you and may you be always the teakland of our country... may the rolls royce's and phantoms and beemers come to you for its wood and may you shine royally