A brief trip report of a brief trip in one of my most favorite train.
Date of journey 28 September 2014.
Coach S5.
From Miraj Junction to Sanvordem but reservation till Vasco.
Arrived at Miraj...
more... Jn in Kolhapur Sangli evening passenger train. Had dinner at a nearby hotel. We were a group of 4 devotees on a short pilgrimage tour to Pandharpur, Narshingwadi and Mahalakshmi Temple at Kolhapur returning to our home in Goa. Out of us 4 three were to get down at Sanvordem and only one member till Vasco. After two hours wait announcement was made for both 12779 & 12780 at around 22.25 that train is arriving soon. After around 20 to 25 minutes of wait 12780 finally arrived behind Twin Pune WDM3D and WDM3A combo both in orange livery at the same time 12779 arrived from other end but could not spot its link although I'm sure it was a Twin Alco combo too due to its heavy chuggs. My train arrived on platform 3 whereas NZM bound train was on platform 1.
As usual in long distance IR trains W/L passengers had occupied all of our seats 2 UBs, 1 MB and 1 SUB. After a trouble of awekening those people from a deep sleep we finally settled ourselves on our berths. Train departed Miraj Jn at 23.00 late by half an hour. Train picked up good speed after the departure the alcos were chugging pretty hard which was very much audible far away in my S5 coach. Got a good sleep but for hours which was broken by an EMD combo hauled BOXN but didn't know where I was but when we neared the end of the BOXN rake there was a hard humming sound of none other than triple EMDs banking the rake and I realised that I was in the Braganza ghat section and the freight was halted for crossing and my downhill train was halted for the mandatory brake testing followed in Ghat sections. Slept again and woke up at Kulem once again due to two uphill BOXN rakes hauled by EMD combos awaiting starter. Once my train made a halt the BOXN next to my train got a starter and could very well enjoy the EMD music both of horns and the locos and as usual even this one was banked by a triple EMD consist which is nothing new here. Had a look at the second one awaiting a starter and also the rake of Kulem Vasco passenger parked at its usual spot. After a 15 minutes halt my train got a go signal and when i reached the end of the station saw that the second freight was indeed waiting more for bankers rather than a starter and no more triple EMDs were visible in nearby vicinity.
Train picked up good speed but not good enough to cover the one hour delay finally arrived Sanvordem at 6.00 late by around one hour we bid farewell to our Vasco bound member and deboarded the Super express took a bus to village and that was a sweet end to our brief pilgrimage trip.
Regarding the rush the UR coaches were jam packed as usual and even the sleeper coaches were fully occupied there were many waitlist and even unreserved passengers in my coach.
Overall the coach was clean and well maintained. And out of the 4 toilets 3 including the western one were clean whereas the 4th one " My God someone had loose motions in the coach and that too very bad"😢.
Speed was good but was actually 57 minutes late at SVM in reality but in the virtual world of NTES it was only 49 minutes late at SVM.
As per NTES it reached VSG only 20 minutes late but I'll have to confirm the actual delay from our VSG bound 4th member.
No experience of pantry since it was a short overnight trip.
I'm sorry if I have made any grammatical mistakes in the above trip report.
Thank you guys 😉.
