On the Jan Shatabdi to Davangere..
Exam duties are an opportunity for us teachers to travel - and the travel freak in me wouldn't let go of those opportunities. Out of the three duties I had this, one was to Davanagere. Davanagere is a little over 260kms from Bangalore - a decent 5 hour ride by road. I also had another option in the form of a Jan Shatabdi Express. Its been a really long time since I made a train journey, and I thought this was my opportunity. Although this train would be a little late for my purpose, I made arrangements to begin the exam before I reach there and booked a ticket on Jan Shatabdi. The AC Chair Car...
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seat turned out to be expensive than an airconditioned bus, which takes more or less the same running time as well.
June 04, 2016:
I had a very very early start to my day. The train leaves at 0600hrs, and I wanted to leave home before 5am, to arrive comfortably on time at the railway station. I fired up mobile apps of two cab aggregators (App Taxis as they are called). Cabs weren't available around my home for some time - a cab appeared on the Uber app a while before 5 am. I confirmed my booking and waited for some time - the cab showed no signs of moving. The driver first called up and confirmed my location - but he sounded a bit disappointed when he heard the destination. He hung up saying he'll come within a couple of minutes. And, as expected, the driver calls back after a couple of minutes, and blurts out that he doesn't have diesel and cannot come - this is a routine happening with Uber, drivers very often refuse trips with lame excuses if they do not wish to operate to that destination. Taking up this matter with Uber repeatedly has not brought about any resolution as well - time to say bye, to them, probably.
The next app was fired up, and Ola! A cab arrived within minutes, and I left home just past 0515hrs. The driver hurried as I told I have a train to catch at 0600hrs. He dropped me at the Okalipuram entrance of the railway station at 0544hrs. As I walked into the station, I saw the rake of Hubli Jan Shatabdi (my train) stabled on Platform 8. The Alco [the colloquial name for railway locomotives originally designed by American Locomotive Company] up front was getting ready for its long trip ahead. My coach was the second from the locomotive. The loco was WDG3A #14796 of Krishnarajapuram. My coach was C1 (06151). The coach was more or less empty as I got in - I had a window seat in the two seater, but was travelling backwards. There were lots of walk-in passengers, and we were about 75% full as the train started from Bangalore City Station (Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna Station Bengaluru, or KSR Bengaluru, as it is called now). We started exactly at 0600hrs. The loco was a great smoker, and had some amazing beats!
WDG3A #14796 of Krishnarajapuram up at the front!
The next stop was at Yeswantpur (0614/0615) - the coach more or less filled up here. The TTE had a nice time writing out Excess Fare Tickets for all the walk-in passengers. The typical ALCO chugs was a melody to the ears - especially sitting so close to the loco. Sometime into the run, vendors began appearing with breakfast items. I was really hungry and badly wanted something to eat. The first vendor had Masala Dosa and Idli Vada for sale - I opted for the former. The casserole contained two small Masala Dosas - the vendor gave a cup full of chutney. I also bought a coffee to wash down the dosas.
Masala Dosas, with Coffee for company. [Sorry for the blurry pic]
Quite differently, the dosa was well cooked and the masala was quite nice. The chutney was the typical railway chutney. The coffee was also the typical railway coffee - I always wonder how they prepare it so consistently! The journey was quite unevenful - I was sleepy for most of the time as well. We pulled in to Tumkur at 0707hrs. I was quite shocked to see that the station still had a low level platform. The train did not move for quite a long time - the reason came in at 071