Braganza Ghats
| Braganza Ghats | |
|---|---|
| Location | Goa - Karnataka border, India |
| Range | Western Ghats |
Braganza Ghats are a stretch of hill section at the Goa – Karnataka border. This 26 km ghat section rail road connecting coastal Goa to the hinterlands of Karnataka and other parts. It has three stations en route in the ghats – Caranzol, Doodhsagar and Sonalium.
The Braganza Ghat Section is located on the Goa - Karnataka border in the Western Ghats. It starts from Castle rock in Karnataka and ends up at Kulem in Goa. Prior to the Konkan Railways this was the only way one could have reached Goa via rail.
The 26 km section of ghats starts at Castle Rock in Karnataka and ends at Kulem in Goa and has 3 stations en route - Caranzol, Doodhsagar and Sonalium. Both the uphill as well as the downhill trains have commercial halts at Castle Rock and Kulem, which also serve as the stations for attachment and detachment of brakers. But, the trains do not have commercial halts at the three en route stations. While descending the ghats, a train - whether passenger or freight - has to stop at all the 3 stations for mandatory brake tests; whereas, the uphill trains are not required to halt unless there is a crossing.
Its fame is mostly derived from the wonderful waterfalls which slide down gracefully in its midst, somewhere in the middle of the ghat with the name Dudhsagar Falls or Sea of Milk. The speciality of this location is it is only connected by the rail road. The panorama offer high waterfall as a backdrop to the trains passing right in front of it.
The route earlier belonged to the South Central Railway zone of the Indian Railways but after the formation of South Western Railways in 2003 it came under the Hubli division of South Western Railways.
Tens of thousands of tons of freight move up and down the ghat section. The Braganza Ghat Section is one of the toughest ghat sections in Indian Railways. The ruling gradient here is 1 in 37 which requires the use of bankers. Earlier the Gooty shed's WDM-3A and WDG-3A class locomotives were used and now the WDG-4 locomotives. Hubli is the nearest loco shed has almost 250 of these locos.
There are quite a few passenger trains plying this section. Freight consists mostly of iron ore being transported from the interior regions of Karnataka to the ports for export. In return the rakes bring in coal, fertilizers and the like.
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Wikipedia