Last Year's trip in August, the most powerful in terms of the trains I took, all RF.(12723-12049-12002-12650)
Disclaimer: If you are a Grammer or English Nazi, please bear with this because I am not proficient in language.
Beginning:
The Plan started in summers when Railfans from Mumbai and I planned to take a ride in newly introduced Gatimaan express, the only problem being that...
more... I couldn't join with them from Mumbai as i had limited vacations at my disposal, so i planned a speedy one, starting with Telangana express on Day 1 Gatimaan Express on day 2, Bhopal Shatabdi and KSK on day 3, visiting Taj and taking some souvenirs for friends as well and an RF session at High speed section of Agra and Mathura, so booked the tickets and took rf permissions for Runkuta, a great and calm High speed location just after BFP.
So after all the beginning lets come to the trip part, took an early bus to Secunderabad to find that Railfan and well known IRIan and brother Abhishek travelling to Delhi in the same train :) so had a call with him and found that he got confirmation on charting in 3AC lower, known for being lucky in terms of train accomodation :p. I was quite lucky to have a company on this lone part of my trip.
There was a lot of crowd and usual hustle bustle at the station before the arrival, the best part that i heard about Telangana was its Pantry and there was no surprise the platform had fragrance of cooked food from Secunderabad Base Kitchen for it, they waited for train at the board where it was being displayed "PC", i searched for B2 and waited there as LGD's 30289 arrived with 12723 Telangana express with announcements in all 3 languages being carried out for the same, finally i met AJ on the door of coach we met and had a short chat when WAP-7 tooted, I went to my coach to get my tickets checked, and to try the breakfast, the train departed 15 minutes behind schedule from Secunderabad and crawled all the way upto CHZ owing to cautions, after a delicious plate of Masala Wada and Upma(combined), got the tickets checked i saw my train tearing Ghatkesar before going to another series of Permanent cautions till Aler and then went to AJ's coach through vestibule. The train was sparsely crowded, reached his coach,we had a long chat and in no time we saw ourselves in Kazipet 3 minutes behind schedule, departed ontime after a minute halt. At Kazipet outer both of us held the door and saw ourselves parallely departing with Krishna express that curved towards Warangal as we did towards Ballarshah, after crossing the lake we did saw the lake and came inside the coach, occasionally till RDM we were having a speedy run and came thrice at door, went to check my seat to find no one there. Ordered food near SKZR and got the food at Ballarshah finding ourselves reaching 15 minutes ahead of schedule, the monsoon was at its peak and the scenary outside was beautiful, the usually hot BPQ had cool breeze blowing, we departed just ahead of 22691 arrival.
Had our food while having an extra halt at Chandrapur, thought we would be overtaken here but we departed after a 10 minute halt. After Chandrapur, the WAP-7 mercilessly ripped till HGT where we halted after passing a long caution, we got overtaken by SBC raj and after a halt of 15 minutes we departed for another speedy run, the run in CR was exceptional and violent at the same time owing to jumpy PWAY. We both came to door witnessing the huge 90 degree sewagram curve, skipping that we had a speedy run till Nagpur and arrived 2 minutes ahead of schedule, we both had a glass of orange juice and departed on time after a massive jolt by Nagpur crew towards Itarsi, i fell asleep for this part...
To be continued.