My 1st travelblog..hence feedback welcomed in form of bouquets and brickbats.
It was 23rd March , the day finally had come for me to undertake my first journey in humsafar to kolkatta. Boarding was from Pune for 20821
(weekly Humsafar).
Day 1: Started from my home to reach station by uber and then i waited patiently for train to be given a platform to...
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board. it was 10.00 and the Pune diesel shunter got the humsafar to platform no. 1. My coach was B16 and seat was SL (Side Lower..something which i chose whilst booking thru IRCTC website and luckily got also).Settled on my seat with luggage secured below the seat and to my utter surprise found only 10 pax boarding from Pune, 1 from Panvel and 4 from kalyan and the rest of the coach was empty.
Anyways SRC WAP7 honked sharp at 10.30 and we left bang on time. The linen was distributed and the tickets checked. By the time train crossed shivajinagar it has gained speed and rest all the suburban stations (including vadgaon-place where I stay) passed in a jiffy. Since mine was the first coach towards the loco, could hear the shrilling and whining tone of P7 honks very clearly. After a brief halt for brake testing at khandala we proceed to cross the magnificent and beautiful bhor ghats at sedate speed since CR was carrying out some safety related works in the ghat section. Unscheduled halt at monkey hill for 10 minutes made the train getting delayed by same, hence reached panvel by 15 minutes late as it stopped at Panvel outer too to make way for outgoing netravati express.After panvel the train ran at sedate speed reaching kalyan almost at a delay by 1/2 an hour.I had booked meals thru IRCTC at kalyan which was delivered at my seat. I could see even the rest of my fellow travelers had gone to sleep or are either getting ready to sleep.But I didnt want to miss teh other ghat section from kasara to Igatpuri i.e. Thull ghats but the sleep demon overpowered me and i felt asleep only to wake up at nasik road..:P.Anyways after a good sleep had a cup of bland tea which was sold by tea vendors and had no other option as this train doesn't have a pantry car. Manmad crossed by and had a strange feeling to see train not halting at Manmad as all these years have seen Duronto (12221/12222) halting at Manmad. Next was unscheduled halt at Chalisgaon which was now adding to the delay of 45 minutes.Finally train entered Bhusawal by 8.30 pm which was now an hours delay. After a 10 mins halt, the train left for its next scheduled halt at Nagpur. Had my dinner from Bhusawal and then went off to sleep.
Day 2:
Woke up at 5.30 to see whether my neighboring co pax(an elderly lady had got down). she was supposed to get down at Durg but it hadn't come till then, which brings us to the conclusion that the train i still running with a delay of 1 hour.Finally Durg came at 6.00 am and my co passenger got off.there was already a bit of light outside so sat on my seat to see the view.Next stop was Raipur as again my regular train (12221/12222) skips Raipur by passing thru outer lines, but this one had a scheduled halt at Raipur so it had to take the main line. At Raipur had tea along with biscuits which i was carrying, and then waited to have breakfast from Bilaspur. It was still maintaing a delay of an hour so with Bilaspur we were already at 8.30 am .Perfect ti e to have breakfast so with great enthu I bought masala dosa from IRCTC counter(Comesum...if I can remember the name properly).but to my dismay, the samabr was watery and the coconut chutney tasted awful, so had to eat the masla dosa just like it :)(After Bilaspur the train had slowed down tremendously which I think was due to additional track laying work which was going on and was stopping at stations like Champa, Raigarh, Bhupdeopur and other railway officials were boarding the train.I got surprised when the TT came and reprimanded them as to why have they boarded this train and should have taken other express train or demu's. the resulting unscheduled halts was adding more to the delay but had maintained a delay of the same 1 hour till Tatanagar. The additional delay was caused after Tatanagar due to Ispat express which got priority before us to depart as it was also delayed to some extent. Kharagpur came at 6.10 pm and it had already got darker outside also due to rains, after Kharagpur the train had a normal run till SRC thereby maintaining a delay of total 2 hours and entering SRC at 8.10 pm.Got down at platform 1 and in rains had to wait for uber to come to SRC station and finally reached relatives' home by 9.30pm.
Friends ....do let me know how was it to read.