Here’s A View Of Dharavi Depot From Above

Back to BEST. For now. The city’s first depot to house electric buses (well, at least Hybrids) was Dharavi which housed the Tata Starbus Diesel-Electric Hybrid fleet. After that came the Backbay Depot that housed the first set of Olectra (then known as Goldstone) buses followed by Dharavi’s twin – the Kala Killa Depot.

For those who may not know, the Kala Killa Depot was formally opened on 31 Janaury 2016. Until then the land behind the Dharavi Depot was never formally used as a depot. Between 2005 and 2016, buses attached to the Kurla Depot were parked here because the Kurla Depot was being rebuilt by Kanakia (part of it is a multi-tier depot, visible from the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road and part of it is Kanakia Zillion) after being damaged during the July 2005 floods.

Here is a photograph of the depot that was clicked by Shashank Parade, a photographer attached to the Press Trust of India (PTI).

Do follow Shashank on Instagram here: @shashankparade.

You can see the Hybrid fleet in the left side of this image. Beyond the depot, you see the Dharavi Loop Road/Sion Bandra Link Road, the Mahim Nature Park and the Mithi River. Those tall buildings you see are in the Bandra Kurla Complex.

That’s all for now. See ya’ll next time.

Featured Image: Dharavi Depot by Santosh Nadar on Google Maps

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Look At These Buses Parked At The Parel ST Depot In The Rain

Time to take a teeny weeny break from BEST and look at another transco from the region. This time it’s MSRTC, aka ST. The MSRTC has five depots in the Mumbai Division of which three – Parel, Mumbai Central and Kurla Nehru Nagar – are located in Mumbai City limits while the remaining two – Uran and Panvel – are located in Navi Mumbai. Among the first three, the Parel Depot is home to the Shivneri and Ashwamedh fleet. I have posted about them back in 2016; you can check it out here: [Photos] Depots of Luxury.

Essentially the Parel Depot is home to the Volvo and Scania fleet along with the Swargate Depot in Pune.

Here is a video (and a photograph) of the depot from August last year, during the rains.

You can also see the Elphinstone/Prabhadevi flyover behind on Senapati Bapat Marg/Tulsi Pipe Road.

Click on the arrow on the edge of the video to see a photograph in the next frame.

Pretty cool no? The video and photo were shot by Lakshman Aroskar. Do follow Lakshman on Instagram here: @laxmanaroskar .

That’s all from me this time. Till the next time, enjoy the view of the Volvo and Scania fleet.

Featured image: Parel ST Depot by Sameer Shigvan/Google Maps

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This Blog Is Now Five Years Old

Okay, so this post should have gone out yesterday (9 July) but it didn’t. I’ve been a bit busy off late and haven’t been able to post much. I have at least six pending drafts that I intend to publish before this month ends.

I started this blog on 9 July 2015 because I wanted to write and after an internship that used WordPress, I wanted to do something of my own, with WordPress. Over the next five years there have been ups and downs, this blog has taken me places, gotten me internships and more. It also led to me picking up a career in writing (one that is no longer), but still.

I want to take a moment and thank some folks out there for their support. A shoutout to my Transit Group and its myriad members, folks who I’ve met thru my days at Swarajya and UnFound, folks that I’ve come across on Twitter, SkyscraperCity, The UnrealTimes, FEE and OpIndia, folks who have helped me out.

Anyway, I should now head back to getting those drafts published so that you folks can read it. I intend to cross the previous monthly records (10 posts in December 2015 and 12 posts in June 2020) as we continue to remain locked up due to the Wuhan Virus pandemic.

Also, a special shoutout to Sagar Aghore and his Brother P-Touch H110 for the featured image.

P.S: It is ironic that Google decided to chose this date to suspend my AdSense account. I’ve written a lot in May and June, pretty consistent and thus my traffic went up. As a result of that, ad revenue also shot up. So last month Google decided that it will play the role of the big, bad regulator and killed my ad revenue by limited the number of ads. Now, with practically zero ads on my site, it has come to the amazing conclusion that there were fraudulent clicks (WHEN THERE WERE NO ADS VISIBLE) and has suspended my account for a month.

If you want to know why I don’t trust Big Tech, especially Google, watch Season 7 of Elementary. Odker and Google are very similar.

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Have You Ever Wondered How Mumbai Monorail Switches Tracks?

It’s a simple question. How does the monorail switch tracks? We’ve seen regular trains and the metro switching tracks. But it’s a bit difficult with the monorail right? Especially given that the train traverses along a straddle beam?

Well, the answer is simple, truth be told. The entire straddle beam moves.

Don’t believe me? Watch this video:

If you look at the switch tracks on Google Earth, you’ll notice these are sections with a concrete platform below the beams.

Here are two such images. You can see that where the Switch track is present, the straddle beam is resting on concrete and the blue control sheds that you see in the video above, are also visible.

Monorail Chembur Switch Track 1

In the picture above, you can see the tracks aligned straight. In the pictures below, you can see the tracks aligned differently.

Monorail Chembur Switch Track 2

So how exactly does this work?

The straddle beam for the switch is mounted on a set of wheels that are perpendicular to the beam itself. These wheels move from on side of the viaduct to the other side but to varying lengths, thus forming the curve that you see.

Below is another example of how the switch happens, this time from the Osaka Monorail in Osaka, Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsrlw2cm-jc

Fascinating, isn’t it, how a monorail switches tracks?

Well, that’s all from me for this time. Hope you enjoyed this post. Once normalcy returns, I’ll try and get a good video of the monorail switching tracks.

Featured Image: Mumbai Monorail by Ashwin Kumar on Flickr.

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Depot Atop A Drain: Look At Delhi’s Cluster Buses Parked At Sunehri Pullah From Above

Did you know Delhi has two bus depots built atop a drain? Yes. The Sunehri Pullah Depot and the Kushak Nallah Depot on either side of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Both were built around 2010, when the Commonwealth Games came to Delhi. The city’s infrastructure went in for a much needed overhaul prior to the games (with the Delhi Metro Airport Express also being built at the same time along with the Violet Line that saw the Zamrudpur accident). Both of them are built on branches of the Barapullah Nallah. Both of them house the orange-coloured Cluster buses operated by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS). Older readers may recall that I named them Orange Faeries in 2015.

So here is a picture of them, parked at the Western side (next to the Lodhi Road entrance) of the Sunehari Pullah depot.

They look beautiful don’t they?

This was clicked by Sohaib Ilyas. Please do follow him on Instagram: @iamsohaibilyas.

Delhi has three types of buses, the standard green non-AC buses, the maroon AC buses and the orange Cluster Buses. Cluster buses were introduced by the late former chief minister Sheila Dikshit as a replacement after phasing out the Blue Line buses.

To know more about their difference, do read this: Delhi and its Bus Melee

These Orange Faeries look cool from above, don’t they?

Featured Image: Delhi Cluster Buses (Aam Aadmi Party)

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You’ve Seen Mumbai Monorail’s Depot From The Train, Here It Is From The Sky

Whenever we take a ride on an intra-city rail line, we’re bound to see the line’s carshed or depot somewhere. If you take the Western Line, you might see the car shed at Mumbai Central or Kandivali, and on the Central Line at Kurla. If you take the Mumbai Metro, you’ll see its depot at Four Bungalows, and if you take the Monorail, you’ll see it at Wadala. There’s a high likelihood that saying Wadala Depot might confuse a lot of people. For it might be referring to BEST’s Wadala Depot that is located at Wadala (West) and is closer to Dadar, or BEST’s Anik and Pratiksha Nagar Depots that are located in Wadala East near the Salt Pans. Or, it could refer to the Monorail Depot.

So, without much further ado, here is the picture of the Monorail Depot:

This amazing drone shot has been taken by a drone-based media agency called BrainWing India. Don’t forget to follow them on Instagram: @brainwing_india.

Apart from the Monorail Depot, you can also see the Lodha New Cuffe Parade apartment complex behind it.

It is important to note that the Monorail depot only houses the first building with a wavy blue roof behind the station and the blue building behind that.

So what are all the other blue sheds and structures in the vicinity? Most of them are casting yards used by various contractors for the Mumbai Metro project.

The first one, at the top left-hand-side corner where the monorail track curves is a casting yard for tunnel rings for Mumbai Metro Line 3 operated by Turkey-based Doğuş and its Hyderabad-based partner Soma. The large blue shed next to the Monorail Depot is used by Tata Projects for the same. L&T and Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) use casting yards at the far end of this picture for casting tunnel rings.

Immediately next to the depot is the Nagarjuna Construction Company’s (NCC) casting yard for casting U-girders for the Metro’s Line 7 and next to it is the casting yard for J Kumar and on top of the that is the casting yard that Simplex used to use for Line 2.

For a better reference, see this tweet by Sahil Pednekar.

The monorail makes for a gorgeous sight from above, no?

That’s all from me for today. Don’t forget to follow BrainWing on Instagram. Don’t forget to share this post as well.

Featured Image: Mumbai Monorail Depot by Ashwin Kumar on Flickr.

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With Bags of Change Lying At Depots, BEST Too Joins QR Code Bandwagon

After BMTC and MTC, BEST too has opted to go in for a QR code-based UPI payment system, except this time it is to eliminate loose change lying with the undertaking.

As reported by Rajendra Aklekar for Mid-Day, the new system will be tested by BEST for buses belonging to two depots, Wadala and Colaba. Conductors will wear a badge with the QR Code on it. Commuters will have to tell conductors their destination, he will tell them the fare and then commuters can scan and make the payment using a UPI-compliant app.

BEST apparently has crores worth of loose change lying in their depots, prompting them to sometimes pay staff salaries with them.

BEST currently allows passengers to pay using their prepaid card (the ePurse) and using the Ridlr app. Both will remain independent of the new system and will remain operational.

The ePurse system was down for a significant time (seven months) in the 2018-2019 period when ticket machines failed after their provider Trimax IT filed for bankruptcy.

Let’s hope BEST’s move will see UPI adoption increase further.

Featured image: Death of the BEST ticket; Oh, how the mighty have fallen (Satish Krishnamurthy on Flickr)

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Pune Can Probably Beat UP’s Record With 400 More Buses

Remember how in May, the INC in Uttar Pradesh promised to send 1,000 buses to the Yogi-Adityanath led government in providing transport to migrant workers? And how many of those buses were blacklisted from operations and some were not even buses?

Then someone shared a picture of a a line of buses parked along the highway claiming it had been provided by the Congress. Only to be fact-checked by OpIndia, and proven false. The buses were actually from February 2019 when the Prayagraj Mela Authority and Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) lined up 503 buses on National Highway 19 and set a world record for the Largest Parade of Buses in the Guinness Book of World Records. You can check out the entry by clicking here and also see some pictures.

Now, coming back to Pune. For over a month, 105 buses have been parked on the BRTS lanes of the under-construction road linking the Ravet to Nigdi. Here is a snapshot of it from Google Earth!

One might say, the PMPML can move another 400 buses to this spot and potentially break a world record. While many may say that there is a technicality that these buses are parked and not being paraded, PMPML merely needs to turn on their engines and move them a bit.

Here is a drone shot of the same from Aditya Bhagwat on Instagram.

Click on the arrow in the above image to see the next image. Do follow Aditya (aditya_bhagwat_official) on Instagram!

One fifth of a world record!

Featured Image: Largest parade of buses (Guinness World Records)

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Tiranga Time: One Of India’s Tallest National Flags And Nigdi’s Bhakti Shakti Bus Terminal

Standing tall at 107 m (351 feet), one of India’s tallest National Flags is located at the Bhakti Shakti Chowk at Nigdi in Pimpri-Chinchwad. This junction, an intersection of the Old Mumbai-Pune Highway (National Highway 48/Old NH4), Spine Road and Nigdi Chikhli Road (being extended to the Mukai Chowk Kiwale BRTS terminal) also houses the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) Bhakti Shakti Bus Depot and the Sahityaratna Lokshahir Anna Bhau Sathe Bus Terminal.

The bus terminal is the starting point of the Nigdi-Dapodi arm of the Rainbow BRTS (remember that?).

Shot by Jagdish Patil using a DJI Mavic drone, here is a beautiful view of the bus terminal. You can see the terminal on the left hand side of the upcoming flyover.

Another shot by Jagdish shows the Bhakti Shakti depot. It is visible below in the top right corner, just behind the national flag.

Do follow Jagdish on Instagram: @imjagdishpatil.

That’s all for this post. Quite a tall flag, eh?

Featured Image: Nigdi Bus terminal by Mahesh Kumbar (Google Maps)

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This Is What Mulund Depot Looks Like From Above. Also Look At A Toll Plaza

Okay, I admit that I’ve already shown you guys images of Mulund Depot from above. Except that it’s from 600-odd km above the ground. At least that’s the height at which Maxar’s DigitalGlobe WorldView satellite orbits the Earth.

Here’s one from slightly closer to the ground. Shot with a drone, this one is by Vedish Thorat on Instagram. You can follow Vedish here: @Vedishthorat.

Once among the top depots for AC buses, the Mulund depot sadly houses none today.

Now, along with the Mulund Bus Depot, here is a smashing view of the Thane Anand Nagar Toll Plaza on the Eastern Express Highway, also clicked by Vedish. This toll plaza is operated by MEP Infrastructure on behalf of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC).

Good looking no?

So here’s the two-for-one: a bus depot and a toll plaza.

I hope you’re enjoying the ad-free experience thanks to Google’s hegemony.

But I’d still request you to back me up on Patreon.

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Featured Image: Mulund Bus Depot (Yogesh Kalgutkar, Google Maps)

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