Chasing the WP: BCT BVI WP run trip report

What a wonderful day it was! A few notes from my side:

Was in Pune, so started the day catching the superfast Deccan Queen, covering 183 km in 180 min., eating cutlets, toast, Vada and KC Das rasgullas in the restaurant car, and reaching Dadar at 10:15 for the scheduled heritage run at 11 a.m. from Bombay Central.

Original plan was to move alongside and chase the WP on a slowlocal from Dadar, however since there was time, decided to do so fromBombay Central itself, which turned out to be a good decision.

Came to the slow local platform and selected the 11:02 slow localwhich left at 11:05, to chase the WP. By 11:05 the heritage specialwas around 1 km ahead near the next station Mahalaxmi. Caught up with the heritage special a little after Mahalaxmi. Then onwards, it was a fascinating dream run for the next 20 min or so. The Heritage special moved at around 30 to 40 k.m per hour, which coincided perfectly with the average speed of our slow local. To top it all, we had a very lively driver who probably himself was fascinated by the WP and drove alongside the engine as much as possible. He maintained the pattern of driving alongside on stretches between stations and speeding ahead a little before arrivalof each station. Then the heritage special would then overtake us, and soon we would again be alongside till the next station.This continued till Bandra where we finally had to move ahead.

In the local, daily commuters had instantly converted into railfans, recording the spectacle on their cellphones. One gentleman who joined later and missed the show was given video clippings via bluetooth by other commuters. Some of them wanted me to mail them the clippings from my video and promtly got http://www.irfca.org/gallery scribbled on small sheets of paper.

With the heritage far behind, got down at Jogeshwari to get a close-up passhing shot of the train.
Senthil and Deep, Indian Railway Fan Club members were in the next slowlocal behind me and we waved to each other when they passed by. Satisfied with the passing shot of the WP, came back to the Jogeshwari platform to catch a local to Borivali. The next slow localcame after 20 min. There were a bunch of those kids who live their entire lives on the platform with nowhere else to go. They had been curiously following me around and asked if they can have a look at the video that I had taken. Living on the platforms probably shaped them into natural railfans, the size of the driving wheels, sight of the pistons and driving rods doing their stuff, sound from the cylinders, all were noted and commented upon with wonder and appreciation.

Finally reached Borivali to have a final darshan of the WP which bynow seemed to have attained the status of a diety. Made way throughthe dense crowd, and tried to locate fellow IRFCAns, Senthil, Deep,Vivek Manvi, Jimmy Jose, Viraf Mulla....they were all somewhere nearby. The crowd had other ideas, finally gave up when the heritage specialdeparted for the return journey to Bombay Central, caught a bus forPowai and came back home.