The Epic Bangalore DD Trip With My Friends

Posted by : Sriram_Express Wednesday 21 August 2013

THE BANGALORE DOUBLE DECKER TRIP (MAY 20th 2013)

(Note : SORRY FOR MY POOR ENGLISH :P )

Reaching Chennai Central And Meeting My Friends

*Beep* *Beep* Thats How It Started.. ! My Phone Was Ringing in Full Volume With Half Sleep i Said a Hello , It Was Sivakumar on The Other.. He Said That Its 4am And Told me to refresh And Get Ready . Eyes Were Burning As i Slept Only At 2 , Seeing Chennai Super Kings VS Royal Ch Bangalore... 8 Over Game.. . Somehow i Managed To Getup And Went Near My Washroom.. within seconds I Spashed Water all over My face , Felt Like As if i Was Hit by a Speeding Shatabdi or Rajdhani . Refreshed Myself and Was Ready To Leave Home And Then Said Good Bye To My Mom And Dad .. , Dad Told That he would Drop me At Mogapair East Bus Terminus... i Gave a Silent "Yes Please" Knowing That Am Not in a Mood To Walk All The Way Till That bus Terminus .

Boarded 7m Bound For Broadway And Got Down At Chennai Central , Checked My Mobile , it was Showing 5:45am Walked Slowly Into The Central Main Building And Was Greeted by A Pakka Reddy Garu , Lalaguda WAP7 #30240 Which Brought The Chennai Mail From Bangalore City . Dialed To Sigo To Know Where He Was , He told That He Would Be There Before 6:30am . I Walked Till PF#1 To Check The Loco Link Of The Mumbai Chennai Mail . It Was 22053 A WAP1 From The Royapuram Electric Loco Shed. Then I Walked Along The Chennai Rajdhani And The Mysore Shatabdi To Check Their Links , Who Were Busy Loading Passengers In 2 And 2A Respectively . The Madras Rajdhani Had #30326 While The Mysore Bound Shatabdi Had #22002 . Heard My Phone Vibrating in My Pocket , It Was Sigo He Said That He Was Waiting Near Ratna Cafe And Told Me to Come There , in Reply i Told That i Would Meet Him Immediately After Checking The Link Of Kovai Express .

Crossed The Tracks And Reached PF#10 And Finally Saw The Speedstar Waiting For Starter it Was an Erode Beauty #22669 Which Was coupled To Kovai Waiting For the Loco Pilot's Signal To Start! . Sigo Called me Again And Told Me To Come to PF #3 And i Was Like "What The Hell Man?" , With a Loud Tone i Said "YES I WILL BE THERE" . slowly I went To Cross The Tracks But Trains Didn't Want me To! The Mangalore- Madras Mail Was Being Shunted Back To Yard , Thought He Would Clear The Path Fast But At Half Way Mark The TNP Thangam Stopped With a "Keeeech" Sound . I Didn't Bother Much , Climbed Into The Sleeper Class of Mangalore Mail And Got Down on The Other Side . A Small Guy About 5ft Tall With a specs Was Waving At Me From The Platform, Yep it Was Mr Sivakumar Felt relieved After Seeing Him As i Got a Company To Roam Around MAS .

Both Were Talking For a Few Mins About The Loco Spottings and About The Exiting DD Run Which Was Just a Few Mins Away ! . Time Passed On and it was 6:50am And We Were Waiting For Antony . Sigo's Phone Rang Aloud It Was antony on The Line Told Us To Buy a News Paper And To Wait Near Hotel Saravana Bhavan . We Went And Met antony !. Antony Wasnt Alone He Was Accompanied By His Friend . His Name Was Praveen Who Was a Good Friend Of antony ! Ok Now back To the Trip Report Errr.. Where did i stop? Yeah Yeah Meeting antony Right?Hmmm Then , we Packed Our Breakfast At Ratna Cafe And Walked Into PF# 7 To Get Into The Double Decker !

Double Decker - The First Look

A Small And a Sexy Train With Poor Finishing Was Standing Tall On PF#7. We Got Inside And Were Like "wow" After Seeing The Seating Arrangement's . i went to My Seat Which Was Located At The Upper Deck Meanwhile Antony, Praveen and Siva Made Themselves Comfortable In Their Seats Which Was Located At The Lower Deck ! . It Was 7:33am And The Double Decker Made its Way Towards Bangalore Making Us Think More About the Interesting Ride Ahead! . The Adjacent Seat To Me Was Empty And The Person Might Have Missed The Train At Chennai . So Antony Occupied The Upper Deck With His Friend Praveen And Myself And Sigo Took The Lower One . First Train Which We Crossed Was The Kaveri Express With #22855 ED in The Lead . We Were Doorplating Till Nelimicherry and After That We Gave Ourselves a break and Came Back And relaxed in Our Seats !

The Epic Journey Begins..

The Tall Train Snaked Into The Arrakkonam Junction Bang on Time! , Even though it Had started 10mins Late From Chennai . We Got Down And Took Pictures Of The Double Decker Not Only Us But a Few of Them From our Coach ! . We Heard A Whistle Sound And a Loud Honk From The LGD P7! , With The Guard Waving Green Seeing these Things We Came To a Conclusion That the Train is Going to Depart So We hopped in ! .

Damaged Coaches of MFP - YPR Express At Chitteri

Slowly The Train Picked up Speed And We Met The Trivandrum Chennai Dialy Express At Arakkonam Outer With 30333 in The Lead! . The Next Was Chitteri , We Were Very Eager To See The Coaches Of YPR Express Which Got Derailed a Few Weeks Back . Coaches Were Terribly Damaged , Managed To Get a Few Clicks of Em Tho! .

It Was Around 9:10am , The Double Decker Pulled Into the PF#1 Of Katpadi Junction 5mins Ahead of The scheduled . We got Down and Everybody Were Staring At The Coaches We Have No Idea On What They Were upto . One of Them Was So Curious To Know Whether Its Brindavan Or Not , He Asked His Co - Passenger Who Gave a Negative Reply To His Question . Sharp 9:20am The Train Departed Katpadi Junction Slowly Picking Up Speed As it Rolled into The Main line .

When The Train Was skipping KPD Outer Sigo Got a Call From Mr Aravind Sethuraman Who Was on Board Hubli - Chennai Express , Told us To Wave Hands (Like The Token Exchange :P) When Both Trains Crossed Each Other . We Said "Yes" . Were Ready As The Hubli Chennai Express Was Nearing KPD . Everything Went as per as plan , We Exchanged Hands (lol :P) .

Speeding Pass Each and Every station The Total Katpadi Jollarpetai Section Was Covered In Flat 55mins in spite of having a Stop At Ambur . It Was Really One of Those Deadly Run's I've Every Experienced In My Life! . Sharp At 10:22 The Train Pulled into The Majestic Jollarpetai Junction With Coimbatore - Chennai Intercity Express Waiting To Welcome Us in The adjacent Platform With an ED WAP4 in The Lead . Our Train Halted And To My Surprise We Say Jyothish KD Coming And Saying "Surprise" Everybody Were Stunned (Excluding Me , As I Got To Know About His Plan Earlier) Emotions All Around , it Was a Moment To Be Captured in My Life! . Jyothish Had Come To Board The DD With his Friend , Liju George ,May Thanks To That Soul Which Accompanied Jyothish All The Way UP And Down Till ERS .

Meanwhile The Chennai Bound Bangalore Chennai Express Came into PF#5 All Of a Sudden while We were Busy Talking ! . It Came With The Royapuram Rocker #30349 , The Newbie Baby Which Arrived Chennai a Few Weeks Back

We Were Clueless , As Our Train Was Stopped For More Than 15mins . It was 10:35am Now and The Started Was'nt Given .

Finally At 10:40 The Starter Was Given And The Train Was Ready To Roll Out of Jollarpetai Junction . Next Was The 180* Jollarpetai Curve ! . Everyone including Praveen and Liju Were Exited To See This . Then It Came ,The Train Started Tilting Towards Right . What A site it was a Visual Treat To Every Railfan ! We Were Enjoying This Moment Like Anything !

DD At The Jollarpetai Curve

After Enjoying The Action At The JTJ Day We Decided To Take Rest As We All Were Damn Tired , Door plating All the Way Till JTJ . Train Made up its lost Time Like Anything Doing 100+ Constantly in Many Places As its next Halt Was Bangarpet Junction Which Was About 60km Away . We Had Some Hot "Cutlets" (Cutlet Was Good) Thanks To Antony For The Treat :P .

1hr Passed away Just Like That Discussing about Trains And Trains and .. Trains . at Sharp 11:40am The Train Entered Bangarpet Junction Bang on Time (thanks To LP/ALP For That osum run btw JTJ And BWT). The Train Departed From BWT At Around 11:45am Taking Us One Step Closer To Bangalore City , The Next Stop Was Krishnarajapuram Followed by Bangalore Cnt And City Respectively.

We Were All Tired so We Started To Doz Off Slowly . The Next 1hr of That Journey Was The Best Part!. (zzzZzz :P ) . I Woke up Around 12:20 , Sigo Was Speaking With Adithya (Think So) about The Railfan's Meet At Bangalore City ,Which Was To Be Held This Afternoon . The Train Entered into KJM Passing Under The Majestic KJM Road Bridge With passengers Who Were Ready To get Down. More than Half of The Train Was Empty , People Were Getting Down And Down .. And Down . I Calledup Mr Rajesh Varadan And Told Him That The Train is On Time And We Would Be There At Bangalore City Before 1:30pm . He Replied That he's On his Way To City Station And Added That He Would Be There Before The Train Arrives .

The Train Departed KJM At 12:37 (On Time) . Krishnarajapuram To Bangalore City , This is The Secret / Key For The Train's Time Table As it has Lot of "Slack Time" In This Particular Section . The Train Slowly Rolled Pass The Green Bangalore , The Weather Was Cold And Perfect For a Doorplating Experience . The Train Passed BYPL , Bangalore East With a Decent Speed and Tilted Towards The Right To Enter The Bangalore Cantonment Railway Station . To My Surprise , Harris Kiran (Railfan) Was Waiting To Greet Us . Thanks To Harris Who Came All The Way Till The Station To See us Off! .

Slowly We Finally Entered PF#7 Of Bangalore City . We Got Down And We Were Greeted By Adithya , Rajesh Varadan Sir And Manish (Jyothish's Friend) . We Headed Towards PF#1 To Have Our Lunch .. As we Saw The Mighty Karnataka Express entering Bangalore City With its Very Own Twin Diesel's From Itarsi!

Karnataka Express With ET Twins

We Had Our Lunch At Some Hotel In PF#1 And We Had a Short Raifan's Meet Before The Double Decker On PF#7 . Sigo And Antony Were About To Return Back To Chennai In 2640 Brindavan While Jyothish And Luju George Booked Their Tickets in Kochuveli Bound Evening Express . I Decided To Stay Here At Bangalore For a Few Days At My Relatives Residence Since it Was Summer Vacations For Me .

Last But Not The Least.. Mr Srirang Came To Bangalore City Railway Station To Meet Us All (Thank You Sir) Just Before The Departure Of 2640 Brindavan express. Sigo And Antony Hopped In At The Last Moment , The Bangalore DD Trip Finally Ended By Exchanging Good Byes :) .

Thank You For Reading This Full Report With Such Patience :P And Also Again i Repeat Please Forgive me For My Poor usage of English Language.. I Know That You Guys Are Pissed off xD :P