Reposting this for the benefit of everyone :)
Here is my synopsis of the 12293 run on Jan 29-30:
- Started on time from LTT but was crawling near and after Thane.
- Was around 15 minutes late when it skipped Kalyan.
-...
more... Delay increased to 25 minutes when it left Igatpuri.
- A cracking run after that, true Duronto style - 3.5 hours non-stop till Bhusaval outer.
- Irritating 15 minutes at BSL outer.
- Hence, delay increased to 40 minutes when it left BSL at 11:45 pm.
- Pretty good run till Itarsi - 4 hours 9 minutes - which included a 10-minute unscheduled halt at Khandwa outer and Khandwa. But skipped everything else - Burhanpur, Neganagar, Harda.
- Halted at Itarsi for nearly 25 minutes, so it was 1 hr. 10 minutes late. Departed at 4:20am
- Non-stop till Madan Mahal - halted there for almost 5 minutes.
- Then another great run till Bhadanpur (halted there), one station before Maihar. So, skipped Jabalpur and Katni.
- Went through Maihar very fast.
- Reached Satna at 10.00 am, 1 hr 20 minutes late
- I was hoping it won't be delayed any further, since it can cover STA-ALD in 2.5 hours and reach on time. But that was not to be. Run till Shankargarh was good but was horrible after that.
- We reached ALD at 1:30 pm. The other crack train from LTT - LTT-FD superfast Exp. was standing on the other platform - the loco had not yet been attached towards the Prayag end, suggesting it too was running very late, almost 1 hour 45 minutes. Maybe, it was responsible for holding us up.
- Overall, quite happy with me journey - except for time lost at Bhusaval outer, Khandwa and Shankargarh-ALD - it performed quite well with many big skips :-)
- Food - really enjoyed evening snacks and breakfast. Dinner was average.
- Coach maintenance - interior was clean, windows were ok, but the area near the doors look horrible with vinyl peeling off from walls. A person came to clean the trash in the morning. Attendants were all very polite. I had some good conversations with them.
- Our 3AC coach was almost full but the one next to us was quite empty. Many people got off at Satna. 3-4 people actually got into our coach at Bhusaval and they claimed all the empty LBs.
