The mighty veteran Purulia Express serving for decades, daily commuters' lifeline and witness to a Rising Bengal! - Soumyadip Mahato

TRIP REPORT
Arrived with my wife at Krishnarajapuram Station at 7.10 pm on Friday the 24th of August to board this train STD 20.15. My son-in-law was kind enough to drop us at the station and bid us goodbye to Kolkata. But ultimately the send-off party swelled to 3 as admins Shashank Bhatt and Tejas, joined him in flagging us off. With its departure from YPR delayed by 20 mns, the 12864 reached KJM only at 20.40, giving us more than an hour to spend in chit-chat. For once the delay was welcome as my sil, Tejas, Shahshank and I exchanged lots of rail info.
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the train departed at 20.45 and as our tkts were originally WL at the time of booking, IR was kind enough to give us a leftover UB and MB. To hell with SENIOR CITIZENS and LADIES above 45. But to me it was a GODSEND as it gave me the opportunity to sleep almost right through the journey. I needed the extra sleep as my previous 2 nights were spent in the 11013 Kurla-CBE Exp and the 12664 CBE-Rajkot Exp, where I could hardly manage about 4 hours of sleep each night. I travelled from Bangalore to CBE and back on what was a whirlwind trip.
In a case of ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY, I parked all the bags containing the ample foodstuff my wife had taken, on the UPPER BERTH to counter the RODENT MENACE. Yes, this train is densely populated with MICE & RATS of all sizes. Initially my wife objected saying I was being PARANOID and ULTRA CAUTIOUS. But soon wisdom dawned on her as 2 tiny mice were found to be moving around in high spirits dangerously close to her feet. My take on this phenomenon is that YPR is the FAVOURITE HAUNT of both MICE and MEN and these rats are the scourge of all trains originating from that station. (Contd...)