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#Travelogue
My first solo long distance train journey in India

After spending around 2.5 years in Canada, I came back to India on October 1, 2023. Even though the friendship between me and trains date back to my childhood, but I had never travelled in a long distance train alone.
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So, I decided to do a solo trip to Mangalore. It was the time between Dussehra and Diwali, in November of 2023. I decided to book my tickets in 22656 NZM - ERS SF Express, which was in waiting but I still decided to go for it as the W/L was just 3 and it was still more than a week for my journey. The journey was from Nizamuddin while I am living in Jalandhar district, so it was time to book for my second train, the first of the journey, to go to Delhi. I had a lot of options like Golden Temple Mail and Chhattisgarh Express that would take me directly to Nizamuddin without station hopping. But my father suggested me to book for an earlier train, so i booked in 12032 ASR - NDLS Shatabdi Express making it my first journey in a premium train.

Now the journey day, 3rd of November 2023. I left my home at 4 in the evening and caught a bus towards Jalandhar. De-boarded the bus 2 km before my scheduled stop. I was to get off at Pathankot Chowk/Bypass, but I de-boarded 2 kms before when my bus stopped. Started walking and got an auto to reach Jalandhar City JN just 5 minutes later. The train arrived 10 minutes after the scheduled time i was allotted an aisle seat on the 2 seat side, but seeing the window seat empty, i sat on it thinking I will get up when my co-passenger shows up and asks me to leave his/her seat. My co passenger came at Phagwara but he didn’t say anything about me occupying his seat and started to do his work. The train’s next halts were Ludhiana, Rajpura and Ambala Cantt, didn’t make any unscheduled halts and after Ambala Cantt, the train continued its high speed run up to Sabzi Mandi. Then it crawled all the way up to New Delhi, stopping a few times in that 4-5 km journey eventually arriving 10-20 minutes delayed.

After arriving at New Delhi, I decided to take the NDLS - PLWL EMU that leaves at 00:15 hrs from NDLS as i had seen on IRI but the platform of that keeps changing as informed by one staff member at NDLS “Bhai wo kahi pe bhi aa jaati hai” and told me to follow the LED boards on the foot over bridge. I followed and saw the number 04440 over platform number 8 if I remember correctly. Its rake was getting placed on the platform as I was walking with it. Found an empty cabin and sat on a seat. The EMU departed and after 10-12 minutes, I was at Hazrat Nizamuddin station.

Now, the real wait begins.

I decided to wait on the platform instead of going to a waiting room. The station was fairly empty as the passenger movement and train movement is quite less in the middle of the night. At 4 in the morning, I was pretty sure that the rake will be placed by 4:30 but the wait wasn’t over. And did I tell you that my ticket got confirmed. Yes it did and I got Side Lower berth yay 🥳.

Anyways, the rake was placed exactly at 5 am, at the time of departure. I quickly found my seat in A1 coach and did my bedding. I laid down as the train departed at 5:35, 35 minutes delayed. I slept soon enough as I hadn’t slept the whole night. The train halted at its usual halts Mathura and Bharatpur as I was catching some zzzzzzzzz. At Bharatpur, I saw some train overtaking us, It was 22414 NZM - MAO Rajdhani Express. The delay was quite much when the train left Sawai Madhopur but it was mostly covered till Kota JN. My eyes were wide open looking through the window enjoying the views as the train was continuously running at 130 kmph. Ulysse Speedometer rocks haha. Most of the delay was covered until Vadodara and now it was time to get some food. I decided to go for e-catering at Surat. I opened the app and decided to order from Tipsy - Topsy restaurant as I had heard about it a lot. I got my food delivered at Surat and it took me 10 minutes just to open the plastic seal yes the heat seal was too much but the taste of the food made up for the frustration. After Surat, my co passenger, the passenger from the upper berth got down as his stop as approaching, we talked for a bit about our destinations and he eventually got off at Vapi, I lied down for the night and the train arrived at Vasai Road at almost its scheduled time, albeit a few minutes delayed. The coach was half empty at this point and at Panvel, some ladies came to their allotted adjacent seats. I slept soon enough and woke up when the train was traversing through the mountains, rivers and forests of Konkan region. I was mesmerised by all of it and clicked a lot of pictures and made some videos. Now the train was more than an hour delayed, reason i don’t know. The train halted at Karmali for good 10 minutes and covered a lot of its delay until Madgaon. It was a great humid experience in Goa in November, thanks to Arabian Sea. After departure from Madgaon, the train soon entered in Karnataka, the first halt of the state was, Karwar, a small but beautiful station. The train had some unscheduled halts between Karwar and Udupi but the real torture began after departure from Udupi. Even though, the train gained a respectable speed of 100 kmph but it lasted for a couple of minutes until Nandikoor, the train halted there for quite some time and the story of unscheduled halts continued until my destination, Mangaluru JN. Now, the reason of all the unscheduled halts was 01185 LTT - MAJN Special Express, kinda unbelievable as the special train was getting more priority than our SuperFast train. Anyways, the train arrived Mangaluru after a delay of more than an hour.

Took me quite some time to envision and pen down.

Thanks for reading such a long article

-Gagan