swanky new kid on the block glittered in the afternoon sun, as we made our way into the station as the afternoon sun showed its might . The trip was completed as soon as it started as with any 2 days 1 night trip and we had to return back.

PF-1 was crowded, but PF-2 was madly crowded . The 2 main lines passing through the station reflected the light into glare . Had a few sips of buttermilk packed fromnthe hotel where we had our lunch annhour back . PF-1 had...
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few seats so settled there , waiting for crowd to clear

The new kid was a serious small kid. His head and leg were well into the king sized bed where he was put to sleep for time being . There was no chance of him of falling over , he was right in the middle of the bed

As a kid wakes from sleep with a loud wail, the wail was heard at 1545 hrs as he slowly crawled out of the bed, fell over stood up walked and later ran away out of sight. We aren't going to get him anyway

The announcement came to life as the baby exited , indicating the Bikaner bound biweekly to enter PF-1 and the crowd quickly got upto take the position . The announcement further came to life immediately for the Tirunelveli bound triweekly to come over on PF-2 and now we understood the reason for crowd on PF+2 wasn't for 1 train but for 2 trains . The triweekly seemed to have suffered a hit in hands of the new kid

WDP4B quickly pulled into PF-2 , the speed with which he entered looked like he is a passing through train with no halts. The train was just full, sleepers looked much safer from unauthorised boarding and the crowd slowly dispersed into it , leaving a balance for us to take over . A quick halt and a good acceleration, he was out of the station . A matter of time before these diesels will vanish from this line too as fast as this ICF rake vanished today

We decided to walk to PF-2. There was one side having only an escalator with no staircase while other was a ramp. Decided to take the ramp with senior citizens with me,l, ramp being more comfortable than escalator for them

WDP4D came into PF-1 with the Bikaner bound biweekly, very sparsely filled up. Many coaches had passengers mostly to get off the train , and of the 7 sleepers 2 almost emptied out with next set waiting to board . The train did have a good share of crowd for the initial 330 kms since itnstarted from its source .. A Sunday late morning departure being cause ??

Anyway we walked to PF-2 where the announcement slowly came for the Prince to enter . Ever since this Prince was introduced , it has been in news for the aggressive schedule it had on the single line section behind diesel locomotives . Though delays were common earlier , the later stages saw delays being converted to BT arrivals on major occassions . A partial doubling sans last stretch saw it proving itself again , with the schedules being accomplished 25-30 mins before allocated time . The introduction of the new kid pushed it back a bit, and now happy back to the old schedule for return

The Prince pulled in on to the dot at 1615 hours , a on dot 2 hours run from the source , a distance of 160 kms. A WAP7 slowly pulled it into PF-2, wondering why he was doing that when barely sometime earlier an EMD had zoomed to a halt . Anyway , our coach was placed few metres away from coach position , a DX1 and DX2 coach in consist indicating the demand was full for the day ..Sunday of course

Gone are the days when these series had a beautiful white coach and a blue stripe running across, indicating it was something different out of ordinary. Now it was a same blue coach as for any intercity , nothing to differentiate it from a normal train except for the fare, and may be a priority

We boarded our C1 coach and 3 minutes into the halt, we were slowly moving out of the station and accelerating out, as a DMU express special pulled into the opposite !!! The cruise has began !!!


The exit was pretty slow crawl, slowly switching the points and entering into the main line . Ours was the last coach in the consist, with only the guard SLR behind us . A smooth exit, a butter smooth rails and sans LHB jerk and I was wrong... The jerks came quite fast back to back as we crossed the web girder bridge and accelerated to close to the 3 digit marks . The evening sun marked fields , the Tungabhadra , lakes and the ground water replenishing the fields while the egrets went about with their chaar boondon waalah aaha Ujala white colour contrasting the fields. The coach was filled with posters of Gandhiji and his principles pasted across the coach and outside bays

A quick run later , the 47 kms stretch was soon covered . The line from Chitradurga joined us from the East indicating we were entering Chikjajur for our 1st halt. WAG9 hauled freight occupied the mainline, as a loud WAP7 honk was heard on other end . The Tatanagar express wanted to say "Tata" from the unscheduled halt it has got, as we were pulling in past the points and soon it cleared and we too


We quickly accelerated and the speed was just fine to be enjoyed as we maintained the 90+ mark. The stations whizzed past across and as we approached Ramagiri the Dharwad bound Superfast quickly spednpast us quickly as lightning and we had almost covered close to 25 kms in just about 15 mins as we slowed down

Expected a TSR/PSR or signal clearance issue for slowing down, as we pulled into the main line of Hosadurga road station and pulled into a halt . The Sampark Kranti proceeding to Nizamuddin trotted past is at very slow speed so nothing just seemed amiss. It was just about an hour since we left Davanagere and had covered about 78 kms so far

The halt continued . And passengers were pretty cool, noone seemed to even bothered about leaving confines of the seats . Just loitered to the door to see signal red . The gap between the vestibule door was slightly open and could see the guard and technicians sitting around

What happened I enquired?? Nothing they replied . No stopped here since 10 mins so enquiring I replied . Some loco failure of freight ahead , so just waiting to move it from main line , wouldn't take much time sir .. 930 we can still reach Bangalore don't worry ... Hmm quite confident thought to myself and returned to my seat

Getting bored of long halt and dry evening sun , lack of window seat , tried to push to sleep , but didn't work. Checked out the India England score in meantime and India had had a good outing and England were out of the match by 400+ runs . Fine , one more goes , now need to see how to pass time

Slowly could sense ourselves moving , and looked around. We were actually given the starter and were accelerating outof the mainline, having lost a quite time of 30 mins at Hosadurga road. But being a Jan shatabdi of SWR expecting a priority, expected that anything could happen to extent of making up during the slack time itself . Time ticked to 1750 hours as we accelerated and the sun was beginning to say bye

Slowly reached back to the 2 figure mark and at time across the 3 figure mark . A BCNA rake was spotted at the loop line of Shivani behind a single WAG-9 , the caboose was behind WAG-9 instead of other end . An equipment rake was stationed on the loop of Ajjampura . Nagavangla was quickly despatched and the flyover construction on highway and line from right, signalled our arrival at Birur, as quite some passengers picked up their luggage to deboard at this station

Birur had it's share of people boarding the C1 as well, which was quite surprising, considering that 16580 from Shimoga had just gone ahead of us 30 mins back . Good share itself I thought, as a WDP4B pulled into the opposite withe Vasco bound express. A BOXN rake onnthe mainline blocked out view . We still had 210 kms to cover and time was 1820 hours .

The acceleration out of Birur was pretty quick and being in last coach, the speed up was felt through the middle of the platform . The slowdown too was felt , and we moved to a trot at Kadur outer , slowly and steadily pushing across to move again on the main line of Kadur. The 16205 Talaguppa Mysore express was looped at Kadur for us to take lead , while the 20651 Talaguppa bound intercity was moving out on the opposite end, with few minutes delay , the Nandini advertisement covering the rake . The TriRSA has become penta RSA at MYS end with Chamundi and Rajya Rani to taking over . A LHB intercity in between 2 intercity whipping the main line, a scene that won't last long majorly

The run wasn't very great in this section and I wanted a slight rest for my legs . ASK was the approaching station and with crew change , the halt was likely to be minimum of 5 mins. Informed my Dad that we have a stretch and I walked towards the gate, as we slowed down on approach to PF-1 of Arasikere

There was a good crowd to deboard at Arasikere and panic was filled on faces of many . Giving them the space, we too got down . The reason for panic was clear, the train was 30+ mins delayed and major of them had connecting tickets by 16205. Not many were aware of the Kadur overtake, but Railways were well aware of passengers which seemed to be the reason for stationing 16205 for close to 10 mins to let the JS take the lead

Mostly it was come on same PF as JS, informed the RPF to the deboarding passengers . Nothing to worry, they have let the 16507 Jodhpur ahead and ICE is coming behind said another . Listen to announcements for better idea, advised the 1st one againas he blew the whistle. The halt time had vanished and the distance signal had turned green and the starter amber. Whistles flew across the platform, it was 1903 hrs and finally we felt the pull at 1905 hours and new passengers had occupied the coach .

The Bangalore crew seemed to have decided that the Prince was already late and decided to pull it out of ASK just as they crossed the points and it looked like the train would sweep everyone of the feet as we moved again

Would have had the dust raising moments physically on ballast if we had been in 2S, but kn CC and darkness of the light , all that went by were the lights of the station . Jerk - drrrrrrrr. - jerk - drrrrrr - jerk jerk - drr were felt still we reached a maximum . The section controllers seemed to have set the things to set us off completely and the stations were just ripped past . The famous "Bear " and "Sparrow" stations that were notorious for the long time taken for the doubling process were swept across in no time . The countdown process was pretty quick , the kilometres dropping regularly , and the approaching highway indicating we were approaching the perinicts of the Town , as we slowed down to enter into Tumkur PF-1 at 2010 hours , a 65 min ride for the 97 kms non stop run , the SWR ripper named for a reason

A quick 2 mins halt and we were good to depart and enter into the final territory with just another 70 kms left , a possibility of a on time arrival at SBC on cards . Well we were in no mood to repent , as the lights of the stations and vehicles on the road ripped by. A Swift desire on road was no match to our train as it was left way behind as the unde bridge was crossed. A few moments of discussions around and the kilometer marks dropped rapidly , to find us slowing down at a station

Chikkabanavara read the boards , as we pulled in at 2045 hours for a halt for the clearance covering the 55 kms in about 35 mins . 4 mins later we were given the clearance but the speed had all but exhausted . It was a complete trot for the next 5 kms to the YPR byepass and we were given the halt again for clearance

The halt here was pretty long lasting close to 10 mins before we finally pulled out, crossed the byepass line, the running rooms , the YPR CDO , and despatching all the tracks , slowly pulled into PF-1 of Yeshvantapur station at 2102 hours covering the 322 kms from Davangere in 4 hrs 42 mins , with a 30 mins halt in between, making an effective run time of 4 hrs 12 mins for the stretch, the same time as allocated for onward journey sans any slack from Bangalore. The Tirunelveli bound Chalukya , having arrived ahead of schedule was sleeping on PF-2 for scheduled departure

Waited for the crowd to clear before taking the stairs towards PF-6 exit and into the metro station to catch the Green line metro back home for a quick run back and to order dinner for the night just as we reach !!!

Thanks for reading !!