Kasara ghat

Kasara ghat is a ghat (mountain pass) in the Western Ghats near the town of Kasara in Maharashtra. The Kasara Ghat is located on the busy Mumbai–-Nashik route, and is one of the four major routes rail and road routes leading into the Mumbai. The railway line, which passes through the ghat is the steepest in India with a gradient of 1 in 37.Till early-2007 Direct Current (DC) was used to pull trains in this sector. on 2007-05-25, the first Alternating Current (AC) 4,800 tonne goods train was hauled through this region. AC has a traction of 25,000 volts as compared to 1,500 volts of DC. When it was under Direct Current 58 wagon trains used to be detached into two separate units, and lugged separately. Now six AC locomotives pull the entire train. Winding around the railway line is National Highway 3.

Road

During much of the nineties and before, Kasara Ghat was notorious for fatal road accidents. However, since April 2009, owing to creation of separate 2-lane roads in the Ghat for each direction (under the Nashik-Mumbai Highway 4-laning project), driving through the Ghat is a breeze as head traffic is absent. In fact, the Nashik-Mumbai direction of the Ghat is something motorists might even look forward to driving on because of the flat, winding tar road.

References

Kasara Ghat Pass
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