I traveled in this train recently from BV to LJN since the GKP-LJN ICE was canceled. I had tickets in SL class booked. I didn't get my choice of seats ie. any lower berth. When charting was done, I was amazed that the seats were not upgraded. I immediately checked the current availability list made after charting and boy, all classes had TOO MANY seats empty. For eg. AC 3 Tier had ~250 seats empty when current booking closed for my station [from BV-Lucknow]. Heck, First AC had 17 seats empty. If IR really thinks that anyone will book in First AC at the last moment in this train, they really have their minds in the cloud. And correct I was, when current booking closed [and I was checking feverishly multiple times], there were cumulative ~400 seats vacant across all AC coaches. The irony furthur came to me when the...
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SL class became crowded due to 12531 being canceled and GN class overflowing as usual. I personally checked couple of 3A coaches and they had singular digit passengers in them.

Why didn't IR upgrade tickets if so many seats lied vacant? And this isn't a one off affair, this train always has this tendency whenever it goes towards LJN . If you have too many people in GN coaches and too little people in AC coaches, you increase the nos of GN coach and reduce AC coach. But sadly, IR thinks that LHB is magic and all trains, be it super crawlers like this one, will attract AC passengers just like this. This is one example where Indian Railways needs to work on. Find the specific needs of a route and then assign specific coach composition to a train. What's the point of officers in IR if normal railfans [or heck, normal people traveling in that train] can point out a superior coach composition that works out better for the end user [public in this case]?

My rant is now complete. There wasn't much to see in the train. Some xings, standard delay at BBK outers and stuff. I got down at BBK due to some work, otherwise this train easily takes 1.5 hrs more to reach LJN from BBK.

Some history about this train. I have been traveling in it for nearly two decades now. I remember when NER used to issue standard SL tickets from counter and one could board the SL coaches. This train had 2 SL coaches and a single 3A coach. Seats could easily be found in SL then, even window ones if you were lucky. Majority of the folks preferred GN then. Times sure have changed from that era.

The train image taken at LJN. The Lucknow Barauni is a crawler running between Lucknow and Barauni. I remember when it only ran with 2 SL and 1 AC coach. Unreserved SL tickets were available then and seats easily available Ah, the good days. Also, helped by the fact that it was notoriously late in the single line tracks of that time.

Now, it has an RSA with Lucknow - Jabalpur, not really needed now considering that it barely gets late with it's slack filled TT. There are too many...
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AC coaches IMO and many of them run empty. Why Railways has filled such a crawler running b/w UP and Bihar, two states with large nos of poor population with so many AC coaches, I do not know. From one AC coach to nearly 10. I have hardly seen anyone in it's first AC coach.

It starts becoming emptying from GKP itself when coming to Lucknow since there are much faster trains from GKP to LKO/LJN. It has a better occupancy on the other side, though. The Jabalpur side sees better occupancy since lesser trains ply on that route connecting Lucknow.