Travelled in Sleeper class from Dadar to Bikaner. It's mildly crowded and you'll find waitlist passengers in it. No Pantry car but vendors enter from outer of Vadodara Railway station. Beware of them as they wear IRCTC uniform but seller overpriced stale food. Better wait till Vadodara Junction and gather dinner from there or use E-catering. Vada Pav and Dal pakoda is highly recommended in Vadodara. In Ahmedabad, try the Khaman which is delicious. Also, you can witness the diesel being attached.

The next morning, you'll witness amazing and mesmerizing views of...
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desert and various deers and other wild animals after crossing Samadhari Junction. Post Jodhpur, the run is amazing but be mindful about the sand entering in the coaches. Also, ensure that you get adequate water during summer times as with the heat, you won't realize that you're thirsty and face dehydration related problems.

Travelled in Avadh Assam express End to End from Lalgarh to Dibrugarh this month in 2 AC.

This train is filled up pretty much throughout the journey before Guwahati so don't expect to find any empty seats in intermediate trip.

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journey goes smoothly till Old Delhi Junction where the timing is maintained so this train is good overnight option from Bikaner to Delhi. After Delhi, this train faces some serious delays all the way till Guwahati. It'll keep getting delayed and make up due to a number of slack in the middle. If you're planning to have any connecting trip, I'd suggest you to go for a different train instead of this one because this train is guaranteed to be delayed in the intermediate stations. It'll start making up for the delays after Guwahati.

The pantry food is barely palatable, it's half cooked rice, thin sal, some potato dish and 2 roti or chapati. For non veg, the option is egg or chicken in lunch and dinner. Either way, they didn't overcharge me and charged the MRP price. Even the water bottle will be sold at MRP price without asking. But the cold drinks will have MRP rubbed off, so I'd recommend you to get cold drinks at station.

The tea is probably their high margin item with which they generate a lot of profit due to which you'll find them every 5-10 minutes roaming around guaranteed. The tea smells good but you'll know that they use less milk in it as per instruction of their pantry manager. You can go to the pantry yourself and demand for a better tea for yourself or threaten to complain because a normal tea is supposed to be sold at 7 rs and only dip tea can be sold at 10 rs. They make "special" tea usually only for first class and TTEs. Even coffee will be sold with same thin milk.

In breakfast, you'll get Bread cutlet and omlette as option. I've never tried omlette but cutlet had decent taste all 3 mornings though they were a bit oily. Cutlet costed 40 rs. Occassionally parathas were sold but I didn't buy them.

The OBHS staff were active in 2AC and actively cleaned all the coaches and bathroom whenever they could. I've been to bathroom several times and not once did I find pungent smell in it in both western and Indian style toilet. You can wake up a bit late and be assured that bathroom will remain clean. And the handwash was always available inside the bathroom.

I'd recommend not to order from IRCTC E catering due to delays this train face. Your order may not show up. At some points, this train got delayed by up to 3 hours and my co passenger had to get food from pantry and deal with IRCTC for the refund as the order was prepaid.

In terms of railfanning, you'll find a lot of crossings and overtakes including one by Rajdhani and Kanchunjunga each.

Be careful of your belongings from day 3 as a lot of unauthorised vendors enter the train to sell food and local passengers too attempt to enter this train. They start coming in from Samastipur till New Bangoigaon. There have been cases where belongings were stolen by these vendors. Don't buy anything from these vendors including water bottle as they sell it at 20 rs instead of 15. In New Jalpaiguri, they'll sell a 2 litre bottle for 20 rs but buy it at your own risk.

I'd recommend you to get upper berth if you're alone where you can keep your belongings with the trust of your copassengers. Thieves will only steal items that are within the reach so keep your belongings at the corner of upper berth.

DOJ: 11th June, 2022

Travelled end to end in 2AC coach of this train. One of the rake is a new 2021 built in 2 AC which has great head room in upper berth but the side upper berth has almost no head room so you cannot sit upright there. The new seats are pathetic with no flaps and cushion seems worse than the cushions of 3 ac coaches. I always got backache after completing the night's sleep in the train.
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The first night was fairly peaceful, but the second day began with a horror as I learnt that my co-passenger's purse which contained mobile phone and cash was stolen. We suspect that it was by vendors who began entering our coach by 3-4 am itself which is odd. The complaint was lodged with the RPF after complaining on railmadad and eventually, the family was suggested to file FIR at their destination station.

The second day was bombarded with huge number of vendors and passengers from general/sleeper class who were sleeping/standing on the doorway. It was annoying to say the least, it was hard to find the peace during the second day. The pantry starts selling the food on second day, but for some reason, everyone was selling biryani as breakfast. I somehow managed to get a Puri and Batata bhaji at New Bongaigaon else I'd have skipped the breakfast.

The lunch was a simple dal - rice with extra rice instead of paratha. It was overpriced, at Rs. 130 which is illegal. In previous Avadh Assam express trip, they never sold any food item above the MRP rate.

By third day, the train was a lot more peaceful, though a lot of waitlist passengers were still in the train who weren't as bothersome. But the sleeper class was still like a general bogie and the stench coming from the berth was horrid. The 3 AC felt like sleeper class and the stench there wasn't any better.

I'd suggest you to avoid any breakfast options from Bhubaneshwar or Cuttack and wait till Khurda Road to obtain a decent tasting Wada Sambar or Dahi Wada. You'll also get biryani option which I didn't try here. By afternoon, you'll reach Vishakhapatnam where a lot of options for eating are available including e-catering as well as station vendors. I opted for e-catering which was expensive option for the quantity that was provided. By night, there are dinner options available at Vijaywada, but since our train arrived late, few stores were available. Though tea and coffee can still be availed. You still need to be careful about your belongings here as unauthorized people can enter your coach at this time.

The next day morning, as the train reached Katpadi, I was blessed with delicious Idli-Wada sambar. In further stations, a lot of great south Indian eating options are available, along with Delicious coffee in Palakkad. I'd suggest you to order online once you enter Kerala if you're not fond of Biryani options that are available there. Better order for both lunch and dinner if the train gets delayed, as the delay is hard to be covered in Kerala due to low MPS (80-90) in the main SRR-CAPE line. Don't expect the delay of more than 2 hr to be covered once the train enters Kerala.

Overall, this train remains occupied almost throughout the journey till Tamil Nadu during the season time and the punctuality is not maintained once this train enter Odisha. This is not at all a safe train as anyone tries to enter this 2 AC coach. Due to only option being available from inner northeast to deep south, you'll never find any seat in this train post 2.5 months of ARP out of 4 months.