Pamban Sethu - இது தான் நம்முடைய ராமர் சேது - Darnish C

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Two days back, booked in Kashi Tamil Sangam Express for a short distance of Thanjavur to Madurai. The next day, notification came in my phone that the train was route diverted between Cuddalore Port and Tiruchirapalli Junction, without touching Thanjavur, due to some track maintenance work. considering the slow run by the buses of kumbakonam corporation of TNSTC in this route, chose to take 16847 Mayiladuthurai - Sengottai Express. This time, it was not much exciting for me. The reason being, this was once a fast passenger and a part of slip portion, given the halts it has and expected a slower run.
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without much expectations, came to Thanjavur Junction, which welcomed me with a pleasent surprise of GOC WDP - 4B 40063, that was coupled with BOBYN rake taking rest at goods siding. The rakes of both afternoon and evening Thanjavur - Mayiladuthurai passenger both coupled with their respective EDDX WAP - 4, having a deep sleep at platforms 2 and 5 respectively. while going towards platform 1 from back entrance, witnessed some track works involving track wagons, JCB and lot of employees were actively going on. Announcements were kept on made for chennai bound cholan express, which was rescheduled by 2 hours yesterday, to arrive on platform 3. the display revealed that though our train departed kumbakonam on time, it was expected to arrive Thanjavur with a minimum delay of 40 minutes. Actually yesterday, there were 3 trains back to back between mayiladuthurai and tiruchirapalli with less gap, the first among the three is our train, the second being trichy bound cholan express and thied being the weekly rameswaram from banaras.
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time kept ticking, and NTES revealed that our train was detained more than half an hour at sundaraperumal kovil. there were no signs of any train to arrive or depart. meawhile, announcement was made for our train to arrive on platform - 1, this time, it was announced that it will arrive late by 60 minutes. Again, NTES revealed that our train was detained at Pandaravadai for 20 minutes. By the time clock ticked to 1400, announcement was made that cholan express would arrive shortly on platform 3. By that time, NTES revealed that our train was detained at Titte, block station just before thanjavur junction. Just few minutes after the announcement, everyone in the platform stood up, anticipating arrival of our train to find that, it was nothing but an OHE inspection car. Chennai bound cholan express slowly made its entry into platform - 3 at 1415 hours, hauled by RPM WAP - 7 30391 and delayy further increased to 150 minutes. There were no signs of departure even after 10 minutes of its arrival and our train was still detained at Titte. after few minutes, it was announced that it is expected to arrive shortly on platform 1. and, after 15 more minutes of announcement, our train showed up with Erode diesel shed based WAP - 4 22754 in which stencilng of itarsi could be faintly seen. it arrived after a delay of 90 minutes and huge crowd was waiting to board the train. i boarded 3 coaches behind the engine. surprisingly few deboarded the train and that already seats were full, i had no other option but to squeeze into the rush and find a place for myself to keep the bag and stand.
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Our train departed with a delay of 91 minutes from Thanjavur, duly taking 2 hours 10 minutes for just 40 kms between kumbakonam - Thanjavur. After entering the main line track and giving its customary honk, accelerated and attained MPS in a while. crossed 16834 TPJ - MV MEMU Express at Thanjavur outers and crossed our counterpart at alakkudi at MPS. arrived budalur within 18 minutes, made a brief halt and took off in the mainline platform. for a small stretch before aiyanapuram, some speed restriction was imposed and that wss due to construction of some road under bridge, duly eliminating level crossing. again accelerated in a short while, glided past solagampatti and thondaimanpatti. surprisingly, our train decelerated even before it arrived thiruverumbur. anyways, could sense that it was taking loop to arrive at platform 1. fearing that would cholan overtake our train since that our train is running late, promptly checked the running status of trichy bound cholan which revealed that just by then it arrived Thanjavur. After a while, our train departed thiruverumbur, and marched towards its next halt manjattidal, where a new MEMU shed is supposed to come up. halted there for a while and departed. skipped ponmalai at a decent speed. spotted a WDG-4D shunting some LHB rake at adjacent platform. This time, without making any further scheduled halts at ponmalai Tiruchirapalli Junction outers, made a direct entry into platform - 5, arriving with a delay of 82 minutes. Erode bound passenger train with EDDX WAP - 4 22299 was getting prepared for its departure at platform - 2 and GOC WDP 4D 40099 was taking a deep sleep near platform - 8 side.
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did my train depart on time? did my train recover the delay further or was it trolled for the next leg? stay tuned for the next part.

I took a short ride b/w LKO and Unnao on this train. And it took 30+ minutes for us to negotiate b/w Lucknow and Manak Nagar only. Even after that, the train ran at a snail's pace with multiple TSRs and didn't took speed until half the distance was over. We had covered 25 km in over an hour. It took us ~1.5 + hrs to reach Unnao Jn. Lucknow and Kanpur is being connected by an expressway, meanwhile trains are crawling in that section. To say there is an mps of this section is a misnomer because the maximum speed won't be achieved for half the duration.

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were some stations being renovated en route[which is a good thing]. I returned via CNB-LKO MEMU which was overtaken by PNVL-GKP Express once[ at Ajgain, I think] and then again at Amausi. Large parts of this was due to freight prioritization, increased stoppage at wayside stations[our train stopped for 10 mins for no reason at one station and 10 mins is the difference that decides whether your train will be overtaken later or not].

I don't see anyway how Vande Metro will come on these tracks. The tracks are absolutely borderline pathetic in this section. They were probably in better shape when they were first built.It's much better to shell out money for bus services b/w CNB-LJN than take a train. Check the JHS-LKO passenger. It takes 4 hrs to complete this section sometimes. Even the daily EMUs take 3 hrs regularly. From 1.5 hrs to 3 hrs, IR has made a disgrace out of this section.

I contrasted this section with LKO-RBL one where our LKO-BSBS ICE took 30 mins to route out of LKO-UTR section because why not but after that, it near constantly did 100+ with only one unscheduled stop and reached RBL 5 mins before covering ~77 km in 1 hr 15 mins. Meanwhile, even the fastest trains like VB/Shatabdi take this amount of time to cover LJN-CNB stretch which is technically 5 kms smaller.