The lodging facility at Pune in the IRCTC Retiring Room is Excellent except for the following issues:-
1. There are no Double Room/Single room booking. Dormitory rooms are only available with common wash rooms and common bathrooms. Family rooms are available but are very costly. It would be great if Double room and single rooms are available.
2. Family Room no. 5 is excellent with an opaque Wooden Door and good wash rooms. However Family room nos. 3 and 4 are not upto the mark for the amount charged which is very costly....
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Dormitory rooms for 12 hours are Rs 114 plus service charges and service tax per bed and Family rooms for 12 hours are Rs 513 plus Service tax plus service charges and service tax on service charges. This is for Non A/c rooms for 12 hours which is very high and the amount becomes Rs 610 after taxes for 12 hours only. There is service tax levied on the base amount for Non-AC Rooms which should be levied only for AC rooms. Therefore, the amount should be Rs 300 to Rs 400 for 24 hours and proportionately for 12 hours plus service charges and service tax. This will bring down the cost of the rooms and many commuters will opt for this facility.
3. The Jan Aahar stall does not have Meals - Thali, etc and Breakfast items and commuters have to fend for themselves.

There are 2 Good restaurants near Pune station.
1. Sagar: This is just opposite the station on the main road infront. Just you have to cross the road (believe me its very tough and dangerous as vehicles hardly becomes less). This is brilliant restaurant for south indian food like utthapam (lots of variety of utthapam) and thali also is good here.
2. Shiva kailash: Its just adjacent to Sagar. This shop is very tiny but very crowded one. Here only cold milk items are available. I seriously love their "Lassi". I never miss...
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any chance of going there. Try once and you will again go there.
PS: See the image below. The red box denotes the location of both restaurants. And black line shows the route. Actually its hardly 100 m away from main station building.

The General Travelling Crowd/Railfanning Tip:
In this train , for General coaches the crowd is very good in amount for boarding at VSKP. But still once you have boarded , everybody gets a seat (seat doesn't means ony lower sitting seat;the upper portion is also used a seat). Take your seat and go for a good sleep. It will be badly needed next whole day.
The crowd keeps on building up as it passes RJY , TNKU , BVRT , AKVD. But all of a sudden at BZA, the whole General bogie...
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gets emptied out.
From BZA to PUNE , Full empty General Coaches. Take your window seat and and enjoy the full day time journey. From Pune , then again it gets fair amount of "Inter city travelling people" for Mumbai on weekends.
PS: You will get window seat at BZA , only if you have boarded from VSKP. If you board from BZA, then you will get a seat but not a window seat. LOL
And Don't forget to keep a Power Pack for your Mobile phone as there is NO charging Socket for General coaches.
For Best Results, Do a railfanning trip from VSKP to PUNE in the month of June-July. Rains will give serious views to catch.