i had a trip from rajgangpur to chennai via howrah. there were 3 legs of my journey:-
1. rajgangpur to howrah by 18006 samleshwari exp.
2. howrah to chennai egmore by 12663 hwh-tpj exp.
3. chennai central to rajgangpur by 13352 allp-tata exp.
The...
more...

following is my experience of 18006 samleshwari exp:-
The train was scheduled to arrive at 9.00 pm in PF-2. We reached at the station at 8.30pm. At about 8.45 pm 12101 jnaneshwari exp, crossed rajgangpur at thundering speed, hauled by the monster src wap-4. The 9 ac coached train was just awesome to watch at such a high speed. Then just after 5-6 minutes, 12129 azad hind exp crossed the little station at mind boggling speed. I witnessed that azad hind was also hauled by src wap-4 and has 6 ac coaches, may be an extra ac coach for the summer season. Then it was time for inter-state action as bbs-rou intercity arrived at PF-2, hauled by bndm wdm3a. After intercity exp left, the announcement for 18006 was made. After 5 mins, our train arrived, our coach was a-1. The coach composition was loco,slr,ur,ur,ha-1,a-1,s1-s5,b1,b2,sk1-sk4,ur,ur,slr. The coach was an old coach made in 2001, but was very neat and clean with spik and span toilet. AC was working very fine. We had side lower and side upper berths, but by requesting co-passengers we got an upper and lower berths as we had a small kid with us. At ROU there was a loco change, new in-charge was SRC wap-4. After the train left ROU, and after bndm and bisra, train started to show the true power of p-4, crossing bhalulata and jaraikela at over 100 kmph. After manoharpur, i went for my nap, on waking up at 6.15 am i found, train crossing macheda. It had an unscheduled stop at tikiapara nad howrah outer for about 10 and 15 minutes respectively. Then crawling into pf-20 in hwh. After that we went for a room at sampath rail yatri niwas in the new station complex in howrah station. we got a room instantly, although we were charged double the rate. The room we got was a double bed room (non ac), and rate was Rs 425/day. The room was a very fine room whose balcony opened to the grand scenery of the hooghly river and the mighty howrah bridge towering the view. The taxi stand was right beneath us. we then went for some breakfast and then for some rest as we had to start our next leg in some 8 hours time. (would be posting some pics later on.)