TATA Steel Express - Second Sitting sasta bhi, sabse achha bhi - Ravi Raj

HISTORY & NOSTALGIA
For those of you who may not be aware, the present-day 22639/22640 Chennai-Alappuzha-Chennai SF Exp, then plying between Madras Central and Cochin Harbour Terminus, numbered 41/42 in 1975, was the ORIGINAL KERALA EXPRESS and not the 12625/26 TVC-NDLS train that is now more familiar to us as Kerala Express. Later on say in the 80s, when the combined Kerala-Karnataka Exp was split into 2 distinct and separate trains, 125/126 was christened as Kerala Express to be in sync with TN/AP and 127/128 as Karnataka Expresses running to southern state capitals from NDLS .
After...
more...

that the name of 41/42 Kerala Exp was changed to Cochin Express. This train later got extended to Allapuzha.
While there are only a handful of old foggies like me, who remember that the ORIGINAL Kerala Express was in fact the present day Alappuzha Express, I was pleasantly surprised when a very dear friend of mine who was going to PGT, his hometown, just a few weeks ago, told me that he was travelling by 41 Express. While that would have been incomprehensible to most people, including many railfans, I could immediately realize which train he was going to board, merely by virtue of my grey hair.