If you are up for a short distance journey with reservation, then you might have to face the daily passengers in your journey. Some go till Burdwan, some till Durgapur. At Asansol, generally the train gets a bit empty.
For food, this train has a pantry car and sells every item of a pantry car from the beginning of the journey. Do try their elaichi chai. If you are up for brekfast on Day 1, then you can also buy it at Barddhaman (Janata meal, Rs 30 per box, 5 pooris, alu ka sabzi and lemon aachar).

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For Railfaning in Gurpa-Gujhandi Ghat Section, this is The best Train

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They serve this for Rs.30. For the first time I spotted Chinese in IR and it was pretty good. Only if they could give me an extra sauce sachet. :/ Anyways, I suggest you to go for this one!

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Looks like Sleeper is the new Unreserved. After Gaya there were unreserved travellers trying to occupy any little space that was available. After Allahabad people were sleeping on the floor, aisles and common areas near the toilets. TTEs were only checking to see if they had [unreserved] tickets. Charging point did not work and the berths were dusty. I was practically forced to spend all my time in my upper bunk. And, of course, the usual Delhi-Allahabad sector delay which meant arrival at 0930 instead of 0600. Deeply disappointing - I did not expect a mainstream train like Poorva to be so shabby.

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3A Class passengers traveling upto Mughalsarai / Allahabad/ Varanasi seem to be booked onto B2. That's good because B1 is filled with New Delhi folks and knowing which station is coming up next becomes a little more tricky.

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