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Blog Entry# 2175206
Posted: Feb 23 2017 (10:34)

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Last Response: Apr 11 2017 (15:52)
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Feb 23 2017 (10:34)   56136/Mettupalayam - Udagamandalam MG Passenger | MTP/Mettupalayam (3 PFs)
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Entry# 2175206            Tags   Past Edits
This Post : Prologue
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Part I - /blog/post/2175206
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Part II : /blog/post/2175206
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Prologue :
If you know your adversary and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your adversary, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither your adversary nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle – A slightly modified Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
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Flashback to December 2015 : No idea about whom we were trying to conquer. We underestimated our opponent and over confident of our abilities. We had the will but we couldn’t find the way. We planned a lot and fell short. Nevertheless, we did not give up. We learnt from our mistakes, we respected our opponent, we understood our limitations, we figured out how to mitigate our weaknesses and harness them into strengths. December 2015 never let us down, it gave us what we needed to complete our mission. We came back a year later determined, prepared, stronger, confident & with a load of genuine respect for our opponent and this time we conquered.
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Read about our 2015 Experiences here :
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click here
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Winter of 2015, we were refreshingly tired after our experience with the Nilgiri Mountain Railways(NMR) trekking from Kallar to Hillgrove. The Nilgiris brought us down to our knees and were forced to cut short our expedition by at least 4-5 kilometers for various reasons which includes a minor casualty due to slight dehydration. Down, but not yet out a unanimous decision was made to complete the challenge the following year and thus started the planning for the second half of the adventure, which is to trek from Hillgrove to Coonoor on the UNESCO Heritage NMR. After a full couple of minutes, the plan was finalized. Take the NMR ride from Mettupalayam to Hillgrove & trek along the tracks from Hillgrove to Coonor. Book tickets on the opening day and this time be prepared, mentally prepared. Dates, a weekend of Dec 2016. With 5 options for weekends in Dec 2016, we would end up discussing / planning / evaluating individual’s availability, commitments and constraints before we would end up with the weekend of Dec 17-18 2016 to complete our mission. Permissions would be obtained and bookings would be completed in due course.
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It was a mildly overcast sky when I returned from work. An unusually busy day at work followed by usual domestic stuff, a day unlike any other. I could vividly recollect the events of that Monday. Extreme fatigue and I had all the symptoms of going under the weather until the weekend. Wanting to cheer me up, for a change, I decided to engage myself in the whatsapp conversations of the selected two or three rail groups, I am a part of. I hate typing on mobiles and not very good at trying to send my message across on text. I kind of need supplemental messaging formats commonly called as body language & delivery tone associated with my postings to accurately deliver my message, which I so lack in Whatsapp and chats. Emoticons can only do so much. Added to that being not an outgoing extrovert myself, a post from me on Whatsapp usually takes a couple of seconds for others to register and realize my presence amongst them. The moment I opened up my chats, I could sense some “tension” and with the lack of real emotions, our group already had a dropout. Apparently some nerves got pinched and resulted in unexpected outcomes. There were already around four dropouts earlier. The group is now down from around 22-23 to a paltry 15-16. I am now struck with a dilemma, as the drop out was none other than my usual partner in crime. With all these uncertainties, I just left the situation as it is and expected time to take care of the situation. It was not until a couple of weeks prior to the planned trek, that issues started resolving itself and not before other emergencies claimed a couple more wickets. Over a quick get together with IRFCAns in Bangalore, PK & self confirmed to have the trek back on track to the organizing team in Coimbatore. With things now looking up and the schedule now back on track, nature had other plans for us.
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Week of Dec 12-17 2016. Cyclone Vardah rips apart Chennai. Nature unleashes its fury. Trains were cancelled and those running had unpredictable delays and schedules. NMR passes through some dense jungle, steep & curvy mountainous gradients and is ripe for landslides even during dry weather. It is a very delicate customer and just as Mr Murphy wanted, land slides disrupt the rail traffic on the Hillgrove – Coonoor section just after Hillgrove, the exact section we wanted to trek. All NMR train services stand cancelled until 17-Dec-2016, the exact date we were scheduled to board the “OOTY TRAIN” from Mettupalayam to Hillgrove. The optimistic bunch of railfans that we were and our lack of faith in Mr Murphy’s persistence ensured we did not alter our plans and decided to proceed as scheduled. Meanwhile in Bangalore, my travel partner, being a sincere employee that he is threatens to cancel his trip again prioritizing his official commitments. No longer interested in these uncertainties, I decided to care no more and collected my PRS tickets from him the previous day, 15-Dec-2016 en route from my workplace to home.
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By Now, the news was official and the press started spewing its venom. Accusations flew liberally on the mismanagement in NMR, how tourists are made to suffer due to cancellation of these services, how IR whiles away its time without doing any real proactive work. During the course of our trek, we witnessed how NMR was trying to get the tracks cleared of the landslide, which I would present in due course. After all, it is press, who is no longer interested in delivering news, but focused only on TRP, cheap attention grabbing headlines and letting us know how a simple and straightforward twitterati response by an unknown self proclaimed celebrity has knocked the wind out of everyone criticizing them. Little do these armchair activists with 3 inches of makeup, who follow celebrities and pornstars in social media for “real” news, know the real world. Please allow me to vent my frustration because these news articles did make a dent in may plan. I had to spend an eternity in convincing everyone back home, that we are a bunch of crazy folks, but would never do to anything to put anyone of us in jeopardy. If nature had other plans, so do we and we will venture out doing something else. After a challenging session to make people see the sanity and levelheadedness in me, it was time for a conference to decide what to do. It was ultimately decided that we would meet at Mettupalayam and evaluate.
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Next Episode : The Trip Starts.

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Mar 24 2017 (11:02)
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We departed Mettupalayam a few minutes behind the scheduled time of the passenger. The breakdown special was loaded with tools, generator and almost the entire manpower of the mountain railway. The Chief Engineer was quite confident of getting his work completed the same day and was hopeful of resuming the services by Sunday, 18th December 2016. The short ride from Mettupalayam to Kallar was uneventful and our group was busy distributing fluids, energy replenishment, cookies, chocolates and another miscellaneous set of food items ensuring everyone is self sufficient to carry on with the trek. Passengers or not, the train has to stop at every watering station to replenish and cool down the thirsty monster, X Class Oil powered locomotives.
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we reached Kallar, memories of the previous trek took us back a year ago when this very same station was covered in mist and heavy rainfall. This year it was a distinctly different atmosphere. Cool, bright and sunny interspersed with thick blue clouds against a beautiful cerulean blue sky. Any which way you see, Kallar represented peace and serenity. The pin drop silence was only disturbed by the original twitterati, a flow of water somewhere in the vicinity and the roaring growl of our thirsty & whistling X Class locomotive. Once we depart, this would be a perfect place to spend some quality time with your inner self far away from pollution, industrialization, selfishness, greed, competition. We evolved to live with nature amidst every living creature and find a balance. As our brains developed, we lost the design we were built for. We stopped seeing the beauty and simplicity around us. We were mentally conditioned that power and money are the two things to live for. We challenged the Darwin’s theory. Survival of the fittest gave way to thriving of the meanest. In just a couple of hundred years, we destroyed our planet. We destroyed every living organism and animal. We made them play to our tunes. We thought we knew everything. In our pursuit of materialistic pleasure, we get rid of everything in our way, be it our own species. Amidst all this, when you spend a little time in a hamlet like Kallar, you really start to see how our life was intended to be only to rue the fact on how it turned out to be. Maybe one day we will realize the enormity of our mindless actions, but that will be the day when our Mother Earth decides to press Ctrl+Alt+Del.
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The cog & teeth gets aligned at Kallar and the engagement needs to be inspected at every water filling station usually spread apart by around 4-5 km. After aligning, we chugged along towards Hillgrove with an intermediate halt at Adderley for inspection and water filling. I have to say, it was pretty nostalgic traversing the same section which we had trekked along the previous year. I could relate to every milestone, every landscape, every tunnel, every viaduct, every bridge and every single stream of water. The feeling of been there, done that. Cruising along the first major viaduct with gushing waters below brought in an involuntary sense of euphoria and a smile that can not be described. The viaduct which took us close to 6 minutes of careful trek the previous year was done and dusted in less than half a minute. The surroundings this time around weren’t as green and fresh as it was the previous year, but still refreshing and liberating. The highlight of this section was a huge black snake going back into hiding possibly scared to wits with the vibrations. The immediate fear and skepticism in everyone’s eyes were masked by faked expressions of absolute indifference. Folks, it is OK to be scared and we should be. Fear is an important factor that keep our senses sharp and let us handle the situation. Soon enough we reach Adderley and continue onto Hillgrove after a 10 minute break. We pass through that small temple where we had lunch the previous year. That nasty little slippery bridge where we had to let one of our group exit due to severe cramps. That protective rock like structure from where we were forced to return to the bridge due to an elephant encounter and that long distance view of Hillgrove station board which never seemed to come closer the previous year. Ten minutes after ten in the morning. We are now where we quit last year and all set to continue to conquer the rest of the Blue Mountains.
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It was another ten minute break for the workers, while we were getting ready for the next 10 km of trekking the steep gradient. The landslide was supposedly less than a km ahead towards Coonoor which we would be crossing shortly. Hillgrove is famous for monkeys and “Dal Vada”. The stall vendor who guided us down from here a year ago treated us to hot, crispy and perfectly balanced dal vada and steaming hot tea to liven up our senses for the arduous task ahead.Ten minutes later as the breakdown special pushed on towards the landslide area, we collected our baggage and got our miniature versions with the station name board captured into the silicon valleys of my 64GB UHS1 Class 10 Memory card. Fully refreshed and excited, it is time to complete what was left incomplete. Should I say, intuition or premonition or deja vu, I felt that the breakdown special is gonna block our way right in the middle of some bridge or viaduct. A passing thought soon lost as we blended in with nature all around us. We bid goodbyes to the station staff and the innumerable monkeys and started hiking up the 1 in 12.5 gradient.
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In the last 3-4 years, I have been attending a lot of workshops & meetings with clients, a few of them stretching almost up to a week. The typical discussion patterns always turn out to be something similar to MS Dhoni’s innings. The first 1% of the agenda items consume about 99% of the time and the remaining 99% of the agenda is completed in 1% of the time. Our hike was no different to this. Add to it the fact that Hillgrove – Runnymede section of the NMR provides the best visual treats, it was no wonder that the first 1 km of the trek took us close to an hour. We encountered about three waterfalls , a couple of tunnels and 3 small bridges before we could sight our breakdown special berthed and off to some real heavy duty work.
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As we neared the BDS, my weird intuition was proven right. The Loco was right there parked in the middle of a narrow bridge smoking and puffing. Our hike came to a complete screeching halt. I am not sure if I could transport any of you to the scene with my writing ability, but allow me to experiment. The Loco is covering the entire length of this small bridge. There are no hand holders / any space available on either side of the loco for us to move ahead. To the left is a plain straight drop of at least 200 feet. On the right is a drop of about 8-10 feet which would place us in a landing at the base of a wayside waterfall. A few rocks right under the bridge. There is no way down on the left and the only way is to hand crawl down to the landing on the right, get drenched, use the rocks under the bridge as support not to fall off the steep cliff and carefully trundle along the 30-40 feet length of the bridge to reach the other side balancing our bags and equipment against slippery rocks. Well.. we did it all right. All of us. Came back up on the other side fully drenched and refreshed by an ice cold natural waterfall. If I were let to sum up the experience of NMR, this one adventure would suffice. Ten of us and half an hour is what it took for us to move on. A few meters ahead, we encountered the landslide which brought the NMR to a complete standstill. It took us just a few moments to realize the quantum of labor and manpower required to clear a small landslide. The unforgiving terrain and limited access path and lack of space to dump the debris demands the highest of resources from even the fittest of the workers. These workers need to be truly appreciated and thanked for the efforts they put in to get the NMR back on track for tourists like us to enjoy the beautiful visages NMR has to offer. After thanking them, we moved on.
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The trek up to Runnymede station was uneventful and quick. This 4 km stretch took us exactly an hour from the landslide location. A short 2 minute refreshment & hydration break every kilometer kept the momentum going. Some of the best visuals in this hike were reserved for this section. The view of the valleys, falls, mountains and the long winding Mettupalayam – Ooty highway presented some breathtaking visuals where a description would provide no justice to the reality on display. Right alongside Runnymede station is the famous Katteri Park, a well maintained tourist spot. We were supposed to get our lunches delivered by our drivers at Runnymede station, but the traffic and roadworks en route ensured that they had not even started the climb towards Coonoor. Half hour later, post energizing and hydrating ourselves, we continued on only to be presented with the 1 in 12 gradient again. Plastic bottles, covers, sewage / waste mixed with streams and falls, gave us a clear indication that so called civilization is around. It was clear to us not to depend on any natural water source beyond Runnymede.
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Considering our previous encounter with a hungry wild elephant, we had all our senses tuned to sense any danger. However as the elevation increased and more civilization around, the chances of encountering any more elephants were going down as we kept going up, but a repetitive pattern of prints on the left side of the tracks kept us interested and on the edge. Just as we were exiting out of another tunnel, the local population urged us to be quiet and move to the other side of the tracks only to witness a full grown adult male Indian Gaur casually lazing around chewing gum. A beautiful sight well enjoyed from a safe distance. Unlike the previous trek which was in the middle of a devastating cyclone on the east coast, this one was relatively dry and slightly more tiring, but we had the experience of the previous trek and mentally prepared for the task which we had so underestimated the last time and quickly completed the remaining 5 km to Coonoor in 2hrs. Coonoor presented us with relief, clean water, a beautiful YDM4 GOC Alco and excited tourists waiting to be hauled up to Ooty as the Coonoor – Ooty section of NMR was operational. We had to wait for another 30 minutes for our food & transport to arrive. An hour later, with a half full stomach, tired aching legs and body, I find myself under a hot shower at the secluded Glendale Tea Estate, Adderley, getting ready to fill up the remaining half.
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Personally, If I were to compare the previous trek with this one, this one was certainly better planned, well executed and completed with lesser assistance from others, but the charm and beauty of the trek last year is beyond comparison. If there was one negative factor in this trek, that would be the “civilization” which has a total disregard for nature and the environment. Nature thrives where humans do not exist. Period.

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