Sharing a railfanning trip that I did back in February:
The goal was to cover Mumbai to Solapur on a General UR Ticket, on daytime. The perfect train for my absurd goal was the Indrayani Express, since the same rake goes to Solapur as PUNE-SUR ICE.
Got...
more... up super early to catch this train, got a window general seat luckily. It was time to enjoy the half-day journey to Solapur. At the lead was PUNE WAP-7 #37002.
The moment Indrayani left from CSMT, it got amazing priority. Arrived at every halt at max 10 min delay or before. Especially at the climb to Lonavala from Karjat, it was given a constant MPS run, which showed me how much of priority it enjoys in the Pune run. I always think Deccan Queen and Indrayani have the same priority towards Pune.
Had an amazing run from Lonavala to Shivajinagar, where Indore Daund was standing at mainline, waiting to get clearance for entering Pune Jn. We finally entered Pune Jn at 9:15 AM, a 10 min delay, which was nothing, since it was to leave at 9:30 AM as the Intercity.
From here was a new route to me. From here, 22105 became 12169. Crew changed and sand filled. The rake remained the same.
Immediately after clearing Ghorpadi, we sped to 110 (no 130 as 12169/70 hadn't got clearance for 130 then). Was surprised at the amount of gradients between Pune and Daund.
Reached at Daund, decent amount of onboarding and deboarding happened. Sped up to 110 immediately after clearing Daund yard. Saw the massive reservoir between Bhigvan and Washimbe. Jeur yard was surprisingly slow, took 15 minutes just to enter, take 2 min halt and clear the loop. Still it reached Kurduwadi 5 minutes before schedule.
What surprised me was the amount of priority 12169 got the whole journey. DEMUs that had started from Pune hours before us were sidelined just for us to run on time. The only time we slowed down was between Mohol and Solapur as we were running half an hour before schedule and there was no platform empty at Solapur.
Still, we arrived Solapur 10 min before schedule. I returned to Pune on the same rake as 12170 SUR-PUNE Intercity, even then it got an aggressive run to Pune, taking halts before time, to the point that it was crawling between Daund and Pune because it was way before time. Reached Pune Jn PF 2 at sharp 6:05 PM.
A BIT OF ADVICE: People that think Deccan Queen has an aggressive run, try travelling in this train/rake towards Solapur. Right from Mumbai CSMT as Indrayani to Solapur as the Intercity, this train got an ultra-aggressive run, had the most priority on this route, despite the sheer number of halts on this route, all while climbing steep gradients and taking technical halts for banker attachment. Just don't travel on the UR coach of this train.
