Sri Lanka and India

Hi,This post contains railroad photos taken on a recent trip my wife and I made.  The first part of the trip was a 2 week cruise on the Azamara Journey from Singapore to Mumbai with stops in Penang, Malaysia; Colombo, Sri Lanka and Cochin and Goa in India.

One of the shore excursions we took while in Colombo was to an elephant orphanage in Kegalle. We traveled to Kegalle by train, returning by bus.  Our special train consisted of 3 cars, two observation cars spiced by a car for serving snacks.  The observation cars were air conditioned but the the food service car was not.

The car was nicely decorated with wood trim.

There were some opportunities from the train, here as we exited the station.

Manual labor was in much evidence, both here and in India.  Control of operations was through towers.

When we arrived in Kegalle I asked for and was given permission to go to the head of the train for a picture.  The locomotive was built by Henschel. 

While we were boarding the bus to the orphanage a regular service train pulled up alongside our equipment.

The regular service train followed our equipment out of the station, shown here through the bus window. 

After the cruise we disembarked from the train and began a 5 night odyssey that took us to three cities in northern India.  This provided my second, and last, opportunity for railfan photography.  I was dropped off by our coach near a railroad station in our first city, Jaipur.  The first train was just sitting in the station.  It remained there for the roughly one hour I hung around.  By the way, while I was there no body bothered or questioned me.

The station is typical of India Railways; it is very busy.  Our guide told us India Railways handles over 10 million passengers per year.

Another train arrived while I was shooting.

Unloading and loading occurred on both the platform side and the track side of the train.

Even on long distance trains some people either hang out of the doors or sit at them.

A second train arrived, this time headed in the opposite direction.

At the same time as the train in the photo above arrived, a freight passed through the station.  Had I known it was coming I probably would have opted to photograph it.

After getting the photo above I walked back to our hotel.

I found the railroads in India to be very interesting and only regret I did not have more opportunities shoot them.  I will be posting a series of non rail photos in the next few weeks.  In the mean time I hope you enjoyed these.