SJA/Sijua (2 PFs)

सिजुआ

سیجوآ

Track: Double Electric-Line

Presenting a few snaps of Sijua station captured during the Puja holidays.
Sijua was a very important station on the now abadoned Dhanbad-Chandrapura railway line. From Dhanbad to Sijua the Dc line was a bidirectional FEDL, barring a small section between Kusunda and Basseria Block Halt, from Sijua onwards it used to be bidrectional FESL towards Katrasgarh side!
Note that the signs of inactivity are clearly showing.
The...
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entire premise now lies abandoned and desolate, what was once abuzz with life with the cachophony of trains and passengers alive now lies like a ghost station!
Even the station staff have been transferred and barring a isolated cow, no living beings can usually be spotted anywhere in the vicinity of this once lively station............
Anyways the OHE are still energised, the signals still active and an ocassional freight train still uses this line......
Hope you guys enjoy and appreciate the pictures!
Camera used :- Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
Picture Source :- Self
Station tagged :- Sijua SJA, Dhanbad DHN, Katrasgarh KTH and Chandrapura CRP
Picture 1 :- Tracks going towards Katrasgrah side
Picture 2& 3 :- Overlooking platform number 1 & 2
Picture 4,5 & 6 :- The once active lines that would shine are now covered up in rust!
Picture 7 :- Main building
Picture 8 :- Railway overbridge
Picture 9 :- Again rust covered lines.
Pictured in 10-15 :- An ancient weighing machine dating back to the British rule giving an idea of the historical importance of this line. You will also notice the bell and gong for notifying the arrival and departure timings of the trains.The timetable notifying the arrival and departure timings of now closed DHN-CRP , DHN-MURI & DHN-JGM MEMU! Also shown is the fare chart and some motivational quotations.
Picture 16 :- The now abadoned Porter Goomty.
Picture 17 :- Another shot of the rusted lines.....................
P.S :- A simple look at this stations is enough to guess how Indian railways were during British times! Visting this stations are a step taken back in history as the entire station complex is of British build and has undergone very little change over time!
If only IR turned this fantastic station buildings into railway museums as they are definitely worth preserving!
Finally, Rest in Peace, DC Line, Thee served well!
Arnab

THE CLOSURE :- PART 1...
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Saying that the former Dhanbad Chandrapura line was an integral part of my childhood, would be an understatement...
From my earlier instances of remembrances involving the black & white smoke spewing, gigantic black steam engines to the thunderous Patratu and Bokaro WDMs ruling the roost, till...
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the final days of electrification where Mughalsarai and Tata WAMs used to be calling the shots....
From my early childhood, I had developed an affinity for the railways by listening to the tales of my Grandfather from his days as a Guard in the Eastern Railways....
My first memories of the DC line involve the then Dhanbad-Bokaro passenger, those memories are extremely hazy, but the DC passengers was one of the last trains back then, that used to be still hauled by the steam engines, the other train that I can somehow recall having a limited steam haulage was the Asansol-Dhanbad-Bhojudih passenger that would have an electric service from ASN to DHN and then change over to steam traction....
Those were the last days of steam engines, most steam engines relegated for pushing duties at the back of freights which were mostly hauled by electric/diesels locomotives....
Though the visual inputs of the steam engines are mostly fuzzy now, owing to my extremely low age ( I was barely 3-4 then), I vividly remember how they felt....
Steam engines were hugely intriguing, fistly they were gigantic, whenever they used pass by the tracks would shake like crazy, secondly you would have a strange feeling of being overcome by first dust and then by a amazing feeling of wetness... The chronology of events could have also happened in reverse, as I am recalling this events out of my infancy, hence the exact order of events may be wrong.....
Steam engines also had this amazing variation in the amount of smoke that would come out of their chimneys....when the engines started or used to proceed at a crawling pace, the amount of black smoke superseded the amount of white smoke, when the train would be at a good speed however, the white smoke would be predominant.....
However to myself, barely in the post infancy stage, it was the third white smoke outlet, the one that would shoot out white fumes while the shrill whistle would be sounded....
The shrill pitch of those gigantic external combustion engines were soon replaced by the lower pitched boring WDMs and WAMs.... while the steam engines screamed excitement and adventure, the bland sounding diesels and electrics screamed reliability....
They may not be the most efficient locomotives but 'By Jove' they were reliable....
The period that I am next talking about involves the end of the last millenia...
The Kargil War had just ended...Donation camps and relief centres would be set up at an exponential pace to help the families of the martyrs and the injured soldiers....
The Gaisal train accident would be a major catastrophe before the Kargil war...two diesel hauled trains colliding each other at around 90kmph and setting off a disaster that would claim nearly a thousand lives....
Then came the Odisha supercyclone..... I remember a paper cutting that quoted a survivor who had just quoted, " Water, water everywhere....but not a drop to drink!"....
Those were difficult times.....
The advent of the new millenia brought many changes....
Our country started growing in leaps and bounds and from being an aid-dependent country, we started giving aid, our journey took us from the fragile five to being the fastest growing major economy in the world....
The HWH-MGS main line, the DC line and a plethora of other lines were getting electrified signalling the end of the diesel dominance...
Then came 'Project Uniguage' which kick-started the end of several metre guages and narrow guages......
It is amazing how I was able to recollect some many changes that have occurred in the last twenty_twenty-two years just by being in a pensive mood...just imagine the history that had been witnessed by a railway line that had existed for around 130 years.....

It is amazing how abruptly and how prematurely the Dhanbad-Jharia and the Dhanbad-Chandrapura lines were despatched to the gallows without giving any viable alternatives to the lakhs of people that were affected by it....
I am in now way advocating the restarting of the ill-fated railway line, it just pains me how haphazardly it was done....
The railways had plenty of time to look for any alternative but they didn't...
Coal India had plenty of oppurtunities to rectify their wrongdoings but they didn't.....
It's amazing how small mistakes tend to a cumulative catastrophe....
Rest assured, there will be an alternative line some day, new stories are inscribed in the pages of history everyday, everyday is a new beginning and newer breakthroughs do happen everyday....
But the DC line that formed such an integral part of my childhood, gave me so many wonderful memories will be missed...........
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Featured are some of the pictures of my last journey onboard the now extinct
53340 Chandrapura-Dhanbad passenger from Katrasgarh to Dhanbad station....
The pictures have all been uploaded with a lateral shift of 90 degrees which I have been unable to rectify, however please do enjoy all of these pictures as these pictures are a part of our chequered railway history...
I know it's been a while since the line has closed, but it has taken me this long to come to terms with it's demise....
PICTURES 1-3 :- These show some stretches of the Banjora-Baseria stretch which was one of the worst affected sections. If you download and observe the picture, you will realise how close the fires had come to the tracks... However the worst affected part was near the Angarpathra halt on the Katrasgarh-Sijua section where fire had been discovered under the tracks.
PICTURES 4-10 :- Shows the Kusunda marshalling yard in it's full glory. This yard has also breathed it's last.
PICTURES 11-14 :- Shows the Kusunda station built during colonial times in it's full glory..... Notice the obvious British architecture....
PICTURES 15-16 :- Onwards towards Dhanbad...
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PS:- PART-2 WILL COME UP SHORTLY
Arnab

When track inspection vehicles become regular on a train track, something is seriously amiss!
My friend Ashish Paul captured this lovely captures.....up from a FOB at Sijua station on the DHN-CRP section.
It was with his permission that I am uploading these pictures on IRI!
Attached a youtube video link, it was taken by him too......He whatsapped them to me, as he knew that...
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I would be interested.
What is a bit surprising that those track INSP Cars came all the way from NR. I thought that being ER/ECR territory ER/ECR track INSP cars would be be visiting here!
The track vehicles stopped at the station for a minute or two, two LPs got down here. My friend wasn't able to take any pictures upclose as the RPF onboard raised objections. So he rushed up to the FOB, and hurriedly took these snaps......
Well about the DHN-KTH-CRP section I have already written about it's history here /blog/post/1587845
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UPDATE 1:- My friend also managed to find about the track layout of the DHN-SGRL CIC section, from the SJA station-master.
DHN-SJA:- Double electrified BG with bi-directional signals, both the Up/Dwn lines are bidirectional.
KTH-SZE:- Single electrified BG
SZE-JNNA:- Double electrified BG
JNNA-CRP:- Single electrified BG
CRP-BRMO:- Double electrified BG
BRMO-BKRA:- Single electrified BG
BKRA-GHD:- Double electrified BG
GHD-SGRL:- Single diesel BG, under electrification.
Picture, Video and Information source:- My friend Ashish Paul!
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UPDATE 2:- This incidently happened to be my 200th blog entry!