♥♥♥ Davangere to Pune / ದಾವಣಗೆರೆ to ಪುಣೆ ♥♥♥
I had to reach davangere from harihar to catch the sampark kranti, hence bid a temporary bye to my family who were returning later and and an emotional good bye to my relatives and walked through the lanes of Harihar remebering my old childhood days. Crossed the tracks at the station to reach bus stand on the other side around 17:45 . KSR Bengaluru Hubli passenger had arrived on pf-1 . Caught a bus and reached dusty davangere where a hell lot of road construction is going on throughout the city. Reached station at 18:20. Station was pretty clean and shinning as well as crowded which is not an ordinary scene...
more...

in a single lined station. Within few mins the dharwad bound intercity arrived bang on time. Majority of the coaches were POHed old coaches made in the 90s but were still clean and shining from outside. A huge crowd deboarded and just increased the no. of people in the platform.Left in few mins and just after its departure the coach indicators displayed 22685s composition which was exact opp as what is displayed here in site. Reached my coach which was S6 and within no time saw headlamps of an emd well before time !. Seems like doubling of entire ASK JRU stretch has improved punctuality of trains. Besides, there are two hotels on pf no-1 where you can have or pack food for urself when train halts here for almost 5 mins. One was the Comesum and another was Shrinathji Caterors. A WDP-4B pulled in at 18:38. Mine was a 2003 made coach. Train departed after a 5 min halt. Passed through the city slowly. Regarding the train inside, I loved it as it was not like chalukya; crowded,WL passengers,RAC passengers, the labour workers of TN,dirty stinking coaches etc all thanks to its extension :( . It was almost 75% occupied and in that 50% of them were YPR - DWR/BGM/MRJ pax. Thus emptying up more. Cleanliness was superb. Soon we were running on mainline at moderate speed. I was excited to witness the nonstop action at harihara station and the mighty Tungabhadra river. We were looped down instantly at empty AVC or locally Dodbathi station. UBL-ASK passenger rushed through the mainline and soon we started again just to slow down before Harihara. I thought we were being looped again. But it stoped for few secs on mainline even though the signal was green. "I could have boarded it easily instead of going to DVG" , said my mind. Passed through tungabhadra which was suprisingly full of water on the contrary to Krishna at kudachi which was literally dried up. AGAIN slowed down before Ranebennur and halted on the mainline. After few mins arrived the SBC bound Gandhidham exp on pf no-1. Now it started to hit high speeds and just then again we were looped at Devaragudda to let pass the locally loved and a kind of lifeline, the SBC bound night passenger. Cruised through the tracks at good speed. Were nearing hubli well before time at around 21:20 where we slowed down before hubli south cabin and saw Dharwad Mysore exp waiting for us. The loco pilot then accelerated again and we entered Hubli at good speed and slowly crawled into platform no-3 at 21:35, 5 mins before time even inspite of so many crossings thanks to the typical SWR slack. Now I was excitingly searching for Nandini milk parlours to buy Dharwad peda, but sadly there wasn't any as before :( . The railway's Rs.1 mineral water had been recently opened so went again to my berth to fetch my bottle, sadly emptied my holy Tungabhadra's water :p and rushed to the place, got filled up my bottle with 1 litre purified cold mineral water for Rs.5 !! Besides the majestic, renovated Hubli station was looking fabulous ! just like any important and busy station of any metropolitian city. Pf -2 was occupied by UBL-BZA passenger and the swanky shining pf no-1 was crowded with people waiting for the SWR queen to reach the state capital. Departed at 21:55 late by 5 mins . I started to settle myself on my side lower deciding to sleep after witnessing dharwad. But ONCE AGAIN we were looped at some station after Unkal. Probably it was for clearing the path to let the queen glide by. After 5 mins an EMD roaringly rushed by.... but it was not Rani, but the brother of its own waiting train, 22686. It passed, but still we were stationary. I was not much bothered about myself as it would surely reach pune on time or before time, but was feeling sad for many of the Belgaum bound people who were sitting at their windows , waiting to reach their homes soon, which was getting delayed a lot. 5,6,8,10 mins passed still no signs of Rani and finally after 15 mins, queen passed by and we slowly started to move towards Dharwad. I slept away soon....... Woke up to find it stationary in between sugarcane fields in the morning around 07:30. Waited and Just waited for almost no reason. " FILLED UP WITH SLACK TILL THE BRIM" Now I was getting bothered of its arrival at pune as I had to catch Hyderabad-CST to Mumbai. Started after a long wait, crawled and passed through Nira where the Kolhapur bound Maharashtra express had just arrived. The run ahead was good, but together with many slow downs. Shortly entered the Shindwane ghats where we glided at moderate speed. Pantry people were roaming around with morning breakfast with pretty good varieties. Upma, bread cutlet, bread omlette , aloo paratha etc I didn't had any intentions of buying typical "Pantry food" but later on changed my mind to give it a try. Bought Aloo paratha for a whoofing price of Rs.50 ! , A mistake :/ ( I could have bought dharwad peda for the same price :( ) The pantry people were the usual northies. It had two parathas with a small sachet of mixed vege pickle with a printed MRP of Re.1. Taste w as good, was baked evenly opp to what have heard about pantry chapathis being thick and unbaked. But the only drawback was no sause or kind of dipping except for that small quantity of pickle which was not enough for even one paratha moreover when they costed it 50 !! For the price, curd and tomato ketchup was expected. After crossing shindwanes, the loco pilot strarted blasting at mps continuesly to make up the lost time. And finally entered pf no-3 10 mins early !!
Pic 1- Harihar stn
Pic 2- UBL bound passenger on pf-1
pic 3- Clean and well maintained DVG stn building
pic 4- Pf no-1 of DVG with just arrived Siddhaganga Intercity
pic 5- Display board at DVG
pic 6- Price list of Shrinathji on platform no-1
pic 7- Inside the coach
pic 8- Departing DVG
pic 9- the Bathi Gudda at a glance
pic 10- looped at AVC
pic 11- ASK passenger rushing towards DVG
pic 12- Beautiful,clean,well lit Harihara stn like the city
pic 13- looped at Ranebennur
pic 14- Gandhidham exp arriving on pf-1
pic 15- SBC bound passenger arriving at Devaragudda
pic 16- Well maintained Devaragudda stn
pic 17- Arriving Hubli
pic 18- Rate list of water
pic 19- Water booth
pic 20&21- pf no 2/3 at a glance
pic 22,23,24- Fabulous pf no-1 with people waiting for the Queen
pic 25- Train board
pic 26&27- under renovating pf no-4/5
pic 28- Mighty Shindwanes
pic 29- Aloo paratha from pantry
pic 30- arrival at Pune