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).
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
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.
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)
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).
After flights resumed in select sectors to allow people to return home, airports have been busy zones with people being transported to quarantine zones for the ongoing Wuhan Virus pandemic.
At Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, buses are lined up to ferry passengers to the hotels that are used for quarantine purposes. Here are some pictures:
BEST’s mini-bus fleet waiting at T2, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. Photo by Mahesh Sakhalkar.
As you can see, BEST has deployed its mini-bus fleet for this purpose. These post vans have been used for myriad purposes over the last three months. They’ve been used to carry essential supplies, they’ve been used as ambulances, they have been used as shuttle services for essential workers and more.
BEST’s mini-bus fleet waiting at T2, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. Photo by Mahesh Sakhalkar.
Here is another snap of these buses queued up at the terminal.
Now, BEST isn’t the only transco with its buses being used to ferry passengers from the airport. The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC/ST) is also using its Shivshahi fleet of AC buses to ferry passengers.
MSRTC’s Shivshahi fleet waiting at T2, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. Photo by Mahesh Sakhalkar.
The Shivneri fleet meanwhile has been used to carry goods.
Here is a picture of the Shivneri Scania fleet parked at Nancy Colony, Borivali. The regular buses are used as cargo buses, mostly to transport mangoes.
MSRTC’s Scania Shivneri fleet parked at Nancy Colony. Photo by Yash Mhadgut.
An update: Regular buses are being used as Cargo buses with seats removed. The bus in the picture is a Malvan- Borivali cargo bus which mostly carried Mangoes.
Here is another picture of the Shivneri fleet:
MSRTC’s Scania Shivneri fleet parked at Nancy Colony. Photo by Yash Mhadgut.
Both BEST and MSRTC are using their AC bus fleet.
That’s all from me this time. Stay tuned for some more amazing drone shots to be seen though.
In the meantime though, traffic to this blog went up by leaps and bounds over the last month. I’ve made more than 10 posts in June 2020 (higher than the 10 I made in December 2015) and one post in particular – Mission Begin Again: Here Are BEST’s Bus Operations From 8 June 2020 – saw a huge spike in visits, notably from Google Search (for obvious reasons). Of course, this resulted in increased ad revenue as well, but Google AdSense has deemed this traffic as ‘invalid’ because well, it’s their hegemony, remember? Hence, you won’t be seeing Google Ads on this site for the time being.
One of the most under-rated depots under BEST is the Worli depot. It has till date never been home to any air-conditioned buses, although it sheltered the Cerita fleet during the day.
Prior to their cancellation in 2017, there were several buses operated by BEST that terminated at the National Sports Centre of India (NSCI)/Nehru Planetarium/Lotus bus stop at Worli. Originally running till Colaba Depot, they were truncated due to lack of takers. Among these were AS-2 running from Mira Road Station (East), belonging to the Magathane Depot, AS-592 from Kopar Khairane that belonged to the Deonar Depot, A-74 Express of the Oshiwara Depot that took the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, A-75 Express of the Majas Depot coming from Hiranandani Powai and A-76 Express from Gorai Depot that also took the Sea Link. While none of these buses belonged to the Worli Depot, they used to be parked at Worli during the day time. This is because most of them had a schedule where they would leave from their origin point in the morning and leave from Worli only in the evening. Few buses would have a modified route terminating at their home depots instead of their starting points during noon and would return from these depots to Worli in the early afternoon.
Now the Worli depot is also unique in its layout. There are actually two depots separated by Sasmira Marg. While the eastern half of the depot flanks Dr Narayan Hardikar Marg, its entrance is still on Sasmira Marg facing the entrance to the western half.
Latest photographs of the Depot show that it now hosts a few mini-buses, double deckers and also is a charging point for electric vehicles, not just cars.
Anyway, getting back to the Worli Depot, here is a fantastic aerial snap of the depot clicked by Kinshuk (@pixels.of.perception on Instagram), using a drone.
While this picture only captures the Eastern half of the depot, it still is an amazing shot. You can also see a few vehicles belonging to BEST’s Electricity Department on the bottom left hand corner of the image. There are generally cable-inspection and repair vans.
I’ve mentioned before that Google Earth is fun. In fact, I’ve written an entire blogpost based on what I can see on the map, and I’ve even written a full fledged article based on similar observations. Defence experts too use Google Earth, along with other mapping software, for instance on the recent Galwan encounter and the bridge built across the river.
Now, one of my favourite features of Google Earth is the Timeline View. It lets you see a certain part of the map over a period of time. Most parts of Mumbai can see be seen from the year 2000, while other cities came in slightly later. Many cities in the United States can be seen from the 1970s as well.
Now, coming to the Mulund Depot. The Mulund Depot, located at Devidayal Road, just off Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg is the last depot in the central and eastern suburbs. It is also the easternmost depot among all of BEST’s depots.
Note: The northernmost depot is Gorai Depot, the westernmost depot is Malvani Depot and the southernmost depot is the Backbay Depot.
The Mulund Depot was among the first to get A/C buses along with Oshiwara and Dharavi. It was home to the red Ashok Lelyland Viking AC buses and later on the Purple (Faeries) Cerita fleet as well. You can take a look at both these buses from the Mulund Depot here: The curious case of BEST and its AC buses. Interestingly, Mulund depot hasn’t received any of the new AC buses, be it the Force Motors mini-bus, the Tata Marcopolo CNG midi-bus, the Tata Starbus Hybrid bus or the Olectra electric bus.
If go to the Mulund Depot 20 years ago, we see something very interesting. It had a helipad!
On this snapshot taken on 20 October 2000, you can see a circle marked with an H on it.
This helipad is also visible in a snapshot taken on 3 December 2000.
As you can see, the helipad’s location hasn’t changed, and it intersects with the parking area. Basically it couldn’t be used at night when all the buses returned to the depot.
Now, interestingly, when the next snapshot was taken, on 2 February 2003, the helipad had disappeared. As you can see in the image below, there is no trace of it visible.
Rather strange, isn’t it? If you continue looking at the timeline, you’ll notice that the helipad never does return. What does make numerous appearances, especially post 2009 is the famed Cerita fleet.
For instance, here is a snapshot from 8 February 2011. You can see them Purple Faeries in abundance inside the depot.
Interestingly, according to this 2010 Mumbai Mirror report titled Waiting for next bus? It could be a chopper, BEST had apparently decided to sign an agreement with a private agency called Global Flying Club to set up permanent helipads across several bus depots, Colaba, Worli, Dindoshi, Oshiwara, Dharavi, Kurla and Imax Wadala (presumably Anik or Pratiksha Nagar Depot since Wadala Depot is in the West). While Worli and Colaba depots are very close to defence areas (INS Trata and INS Shikra/INS Kunjal), Kurla would have been interesting ever since it was rebuilt by Kanakia as a multi-storeyed structure. Mulund is not mentioned anywhere in the list, although Backbay is.
An online search for Global Flying Club and Mumbai yielded no results except for an article on The Times of India that spoke about the same thing as the Mumbai Mirror report.
I bet none of you knew about the ‘Best-copter’.
Anyway, that is all from me for the time being. If you’re bored, do go thru the last three months of the blog. There are several satire articles, a few news reports, and plenty of aerial photographs of bus depots in Mumbai.
The lockdown has been harsh, so do consider backing me on Patreon.
Over the last one month, I have managed to find some incredibly drool-worthy aerial pictures of Mumbai’s new mini-bus fleet from across the city. We’ve seen them at the Colaba Depot, we’ve seen them at the Oshiwara Depot. We’ve also seen a picture of Gurgaon’s buses and metro trains parked at the depot in the northern city. While I have been looking around for similar pictures of other cities to share, notably Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, I stumbled upon a pair of glorious pair of pictures of the Mumbai Central Depot along with its fleet of Tata Marcopolo CNG midi-buses!
Both these pictures were clicked by Aayush Bhagat who goes by the username mr_clickographer_ on Instagram using a DJI Mavic Pro drone. They also had similar captions, asking the viewer to count the number of buses. This is a very difficult question to answer because most of us bus fans just stare at the picture, totally mesmerized by it.
Anyway, without much ado, let me share with you, the pictures.
In this picture you can see a fantastic view of the entire Mumbai Central Depot with its regular, full-sized, non-airconditioned buses as well as the red-coloured midi-buses. To answer the question, there are a total of 108 buses, 49 regular and 59 air-conditioned.
And now, on to the next set. This is more zoomed in but is still as gorgeous as the previous one.
In this shot, there are a total of 41 buses (30 regular and 11 midis) plus two cars parked at the depot. It still is beautiful and extremely drool-worthy, no?
What are your thoughts? Were you able to count the number of buses or were you too busy just staring at these beauties?
Almost a month ago, I had posted an image of Oshiwara Depot along with a fabulous view of its mini-bus fleet that was clicked by singer Abhijeet Sawant.
That was not the last time we were to get a snap of the Oshiwara depot from the same photographer. Much like I posted a photograph of Colaba depot and Electric House only to post a second one a mere two days later.
Here is the picture. This was also clicked during Sunset, much like the last one, albeit a little later. A slightly wider photograph, this one includes the entire Oshiwara Depot, as well as the Goregaon Depot adjacent to it. You can also see the depot floor is wet after the rainfall from Cyclone Nisarga.
Now, here’s another drool-worthy picture of the same, this time from a different angle by the same photgrapher, Ujwal Puri.
Titled “Give Me Red” it goes with a caption: What’s in the Frame ? “It’s the new fleet of Air Conditioned BEST buses of Mumbai to Beat the Summer Heat . BEST is Best.”
This is just the perfect description of this image.
Amazing, isn’t it? Just amazing! The vibrant contrast, the warmth of the red, and marked parking slots for each bus all make it such a beautiful picture!
Do remember and follow Ujwal Puri on Instagram. His handle is @ompsyram.
That’s all from me for the time-being. Do consider backing me up on Patreon!
