A memoir.
Seriously some would say this was a utter foolishness by me and some will say i am one hell of a lucky charm. But whatever you say, this incident will always be scratched up in my mind, as this was the first time ever i missed my train.
It was june 2014. I was in mumbai for some work in belapur cbd navi mumbai area.
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evening time my job got finished and i thought i would be getting confirm seats at last moment as its lean time. But it was not. No trains were available to travel from mumbai-delhi-bareilly.
some how i got a chain. Mumbai to ahmedabad and then ahmedabad to bareilly.
These trains were 22451 BDTS-CDG sf exp and 19407 ADI-BSB weekly exp.
Buffer time at ADI was 1hr 5min. I though it was enough as 22451 is a pretty aggressive and on time train. Those were the days when 22451/52 was running with end to end diesel loco.
But the most important thing i forgot to consider at that time was that its monsoon time. And rains can hamper all your dreams and plans in a flow.
So i planned to board 22451 from BDTS in general coach as there's 8 general coaches. Getting a seat was not a big deal here.
And i booked sleeper seat in 19407 from ADI to BE.
But biggest shock i got first was 22452 i.e CDG BDTS exp came BDTS well 2hrs late. That confirmed me a late start up from BDTS. Still i thought as its a non stop least halts train, I would be at ADI before 2100hrs.
22451 was allowed to leave at 1320hrs, i.e 10min ahead slot of 12480 suryanagari. So 22451 was running 1hrs 15min late. Till BVI, it was crawler. But after BVI, god be gracious, what a blast performance from the LDH ALCO. Continous honking, smoking and accelerating. We arrived surat at exact 1700hrs and at BRC at 1900hrs. So now i calculated BRC to ADI basically it takes 1hr 40min. So if train is allowed to run at mps and full green is provided, then i will be at ADI by 2050hrs and can board 19407.
But three unscheduled halts at ND,MHD and MAN made 22451 to enter ADI at 2105hrs on pf 4. See the irony, 19407 also departed from pf 4 just 5 min ago.
So train was missed, i thought why dont i travel in this train 22451 till DEC and from there board ala hazrat or 19407 general coach.
So that night i slept. Still at that time the general coach was not much crowded. I went up on upper seat and slept well there. The whole night the coach was shaking very violently and the train was running very fast, i would say.
At about 0530hr i woke up and went to the door.There i saw outside that 22451 very violently overtook some train with an orange color vatva shed alco. I was surprised and i just dont wanted to believe that 22451 just now overtook 19407. It was about 0600hrs that 22451 arrived on pf 2 of Ajmer jn. I checked towards pf 1 and completely shell shocked. The coach display systems were showing train 19407 is to arrive AII on pf 1. I quickly alighted 22451, and went to pf 1, just praying that the TTE may not have marked me absent.
At 0630hr, a slow and lethargic looking VTA WDG 3a came with 19407. I boarded my coach and my seat was SU. The SL seat was for two persons (RAC). After sitting, i asked those persons whether TTE has checked tickets. They gave me a very happy news. Till now TTE was yet to come and check the tickets. I thought myself pretty lucky at that time, if TTE would have checked the tickets, then definetly he would have marked me absent and gave my seat to on of those RAC person. But my seat was saved and TTE atlast came after Alwar.
Seriously thanks to those Loco pilots of 22451, the controllers of NWR and the TTE assigned to 19407, my journey was gracious and money was saved.