Jalandhar - Nakodar Railway Line- From Steam Engines to Electric Engines.

This   railway line is just behind my house in Urban Estate , Phase 1 , Jalandhar City

When I started constructing this house in 1994 trains passing on this line were pulled by steam engines. 

The engines moved slowly with great effort. Their laborious huffing and  puffing  sent very strong vibrations / tremors to my house 's site. These were like a very mild earthquake .     I brought this to the notice of my civil engineer and asked him whether we should go for extra strengthening of the house's foundations.

After sometime steam engines were phased out. In place came diesel engines and  DEMU s. Tremors disappeared.

Now , by 2022 the track has been electrified . Electric trains / EMU s glide past my house.

The inevitable march of technology.

But I miss the shrill Koo Koo whistle of the steam engines wwhih now have been replaced by bland and unmusical honking of  electric horns   

. My generation 's childhood memories were associated with these steam whistles- I am  Nov. 1959 born.

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Amritsar - Mumbai Railway Line

 

Engines - Steam / Diesel and Electric - My Memories 

I was very young when I first travelled in ' Frontier Mail ' around 1966 , with my parents , from Jullundur to Bombay . I had always been fascinated by Railway engines.

Frontier Mail has a Steam engine from Jullundur onward . But when I woke up after my second night I found that an electric engine , a new type of engine for me , was pulling our train. We were nearing Bombay .

 

I was told that it was a standard practice to change engines from Steam to Electric and vice versa on return at a station named Dahod in Gujarat. 

After a few years the switch of engines started to be done at Godhra - Gujarat. 

Then Ratlam in M P.

 

In 1976 when I was studying in St. Stephen's College , Delhi while passing under Tilak bridge, New Delhi I found that the railway line had been electrified till New Delhi

Finally in 1980 s entire Bombay - Amritsar line was on electric traction. No need to switch / change engines but only the engine staff. 

Bombay had been renamed Mumbai and Frontier Mail became 'Golden Temple Express . 

Frontier Mail 's rake / entire train's one part which started from Pathankot and joined the main train at Old Delhi station. This train was named Kashmir Mail .

 

Kashmir Mail became Jammu Mail with the railway line having been extended from Pathankot to Jammu Tawi

 

by

 

Ashwani  Kumar Aggarwal