Bhopal Shatabdi: chalti hai ek dum hawa ke mafik, speed aisi ke ruka de traffic - Varun

The month of December. A month about which most of the railfans of India know. Fog, delayed, resch and cancelled trains. Well the date of the trip was decided well in advance even before I left Bokaro for NDLS and to come back. But this time, i wanted to try something else. Equally confused, should I take my fav Rajdhani or go for something else.. like 12826 or 12818 or 12802. Could not decide it. The trains were running on time, till mid November. I risked it, and booked a tkt in Purushottam Express, though I was well aware, that fog may ruin the 130 madness. But still I risked it. Then suddenly one night, everything changed. It happened almost 15 16 days before my trip. The Rajdhanis were delayed by 5 to 6 hrs between MGS and CNB and the delay was increasing. I took it as a common incident,...
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maybe some issue. The next day I came to know, it was the notorious FOG. Anyways in the hope that situation would improve, I didn't cancel the tkts, keeping in mind, Purushottam has a long TAT. But the situation was getting worse and worse day by day and my hopes for 130 and timely arrival at BKSC were demolishing with each day passing. After a week attack, the weather cleared. My hopes were back on track. But the continuous resch from both sides kept me in dilemma. Anyways, I was thinking, 130 MPS can do something, and then the fog attacked again. More severly. My hopes lost.I was badly confused, to take 12440 or 12802. Finally, I decided to go with 12440. But seems, God was is=n no mood to spare me. The prices were much higher. I cancelled the thought of Booking. I kept on keeping my hopes high. While my PNR was moving at snail's pace. When it reached WL 8, I posted it on the DOJ, as I had made up my mind to go by 12802 now. /pnr/post/2077666.
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I was still thinking in the morning, should I book in 12440 :p. Finally, i said.. Jo hoga dekh lenge. These decisions we often take in our lives. :p. The train arrived NDLS at abt 6 PM. I was damn sure, it wud depart ontime or a maximum of 30 mins delayed. Suddenly after few mins my frnd called " bhaiyya, train to raat 1 baje jaayegi ". And for few moments, my mind went blank. In Hindi, we have a proverb --- " jab okhli mai sar de diya to ab kya darna". Anyways I collected myself back. My everything was packed. I left my PG at app 23:00 hrs. Booked a cab, and reached at 23:25. Thanks to nil traffic. Shivganga was being placed and Prayagraj was in pitline. TN was yet to be placed alongwith GT. AP was being placed. Poorva, as usual, running extremely delayed and ETA was 2 AM. I arrived at PF 9. BSP Rajdhani was in the sickline with ET WAP 4. A shatabdi came at PF 9. While Mahabodhi was placed few minutes before that. All were speculating, once shatabdi goes to yard, the train would be placed on PF
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Mahabodhi was full. Heavily crowded even in such winters. Finally the shatabdi was taken to pitline. an announcement was done - "Passengers your attention please, Saharsa - Amritsar Garibrath is arriving on PF 9.".. " Yatrigan kripya dhyan dijiye, Saharsa se chalkar AMritsar ko jaane wali, Amritsar garib Rath, Platform number nau pe lagayi jaa rahi hai aur gaadi sankhya 12802 nayi dilli se chalkar puri ko jaane wali, purushottam express, abhi takniki dekhrekh ke liye yard mai khadi hai. Jaise hi gaadi platform pe lagayi jayegi, aapko soochit kiya jayega." I was like.. WTH... I had become Jethalal. Finally, the train was placed at app 01:50 AM. It departed at 02:04 AM. I exchanged my UB with SLB.
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More to be followed in subsequent sub blogs.