Visit to KPHI (Girivihar)

KPHI in language of the Indian Railways means "Khopoli". This is a small non-descript town about 80 kms from Bombay (CSTM). Its at the start (Bhor Ghat) of the ghats section of the old Bombay-Poona highway. Khopoli is mainly a small town which serves as a halt for travellers on the Bombay - Lonavala section. Its got a few rudimentary hotels and eating places. Of the business establishments / industry there (i.e., economy of the place) - the prominent ones are the Tata Hydro Electric Power Station (that also provides power to the Railways. Tata's are good - hence the railways do a fine job. God forbid, if the other pvt. player in Mumbai was supplying to the Railways), MUSCO - Mahindra Ugine Steel Co. - that makes steel from scrap iron/steel or something. They have a rather polluting and noisy (at least it looked like that) plant. I really dont know how well this company is doing or what its fate is going to be. After all they run SAP. Another thing about this place is that there used to be a company called PEPCO or something, that was there many years ago here but has now closed down. That company did do a lot for the place. Khopoli was known as "Girivihar" in earlier times. Not much is known about how the name "Khopoli" evolved.

Anyway I was there this Sunday.

I also visited the railway station. A feature of this is that from Palasdhari (PDI) (on the KJT-PA) line to KPHI its a single line track. This is the only section on the entire Mumbai Suburban Rail Netowrk that has a single line. This route was built over 75 years ago, when the TATA's set up their hydro-electric plant. This is the final station on that link. Trains go no further than KPHI. Also, the frequency of CSTM trains from here is quite few (just 2 or 3 in the full day). Totally there are just about 15 services from KPHI, and most operate as shuttle services to KJT.