Trip Report!
Part 1:
January 5th, 2014.
The clock showed 22:10 hours as I bid goodbye to the folks at home and set off towards the Mangalore Junction Railway Station. It took me a little over 5 minutes to lug myself and the luggage to the ticketing counter for a quick purchase of an unreserved general class ticket to Madgaon, Goa. I won't reveal...
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the itinerary now. It shall be uncovered at the right stages across this travelogue. One quick glance at the ticket to confirm the destination and I was jovially trotting on the Foot Over Bridge to cross over to the island platforms numbered 2 and 3 with my train slated to arrive on the former. It was just a matter of seconds before my train, the 19261 Kochuveli Porbander Express made an appearance alerting all the half-dozing passengers on the platforms to be on red-alert to hop in. I knew exactly where the first coach of the train would halt and that eliminated the hassles of making any major moves. I was delighted at the sight of a classic GOC WDM2 powering my train! The train was quite packed, with the general carriages per se contributing to the major chunk of the head count. The first coach however was devoid of any human presence save for a religious sage, murmuring something to himself. I hopped in and occupied one of the seats and soon another fellow heading to Madgaon joined the bandwagon, taking the passenger count to a grand total of 3 but not before confirming that the particular coach was not the elusive 'Ladies' coach. I assured him that it wasn't and told him that the 'Ladies' coach was at the rear. Satisfied with my reply, he climbed onto the luggage rack with such agility that would put even Spider-man to shame and dozed off in an instant. The departure of the train was on the dot at the scheduled 22:30hrs and I decided to make good use of the vacant seats by lying down and tried to get some sleep as the train rumbled away into the darkness of the night. At Udupi, a youngster bound for Ratnagiri entrained the coach while the Sage alighted to pursue his spiritual curriculum. After Udupi, I locked all the doors of the carriage since the train had a non-stop 2.5 hour run to Karwar and decided to hit the sack. The gentle swaying of the train combined with the melodious throbbing of the Diesel Engine put me to sleep in no time and I would vouch for this melody over any other lullaby out there on any given day. I was jolted out of my slumber with a ravenous roar and popping of the ears as the train gunned through the 2 Kilometer long Byndoor Tunnel at a hundred and ten kilometers per hour. Downing the window shutters didn't help much as the turbulence created by the train rummaging in and out of long tunnels was quite an intense experience in the cold winter night ambiance. The thrashing continued with quite a few intermittent stops in between to let other 'higher-priority' trains to rocket past. This being a weekly train doesn't enjoy just as much priority as some of the other trains and we were side-lined at each and every instant of an approaching train save for freights. The crossings that took place were that of the 12618 Mangala Express, 10215 Madgaon Ernakulam Express, 19578 Hapa Tirunelveli Express and the 16345 Netravati Express. Karwar arrived a few minutes behind the scheduled time and it was yet another long halt at this station to allow the 12619 Matsyagandha Express to arrive on the adjacent platform. There was a huge crowd braving the biting cold, waiting to board the Matsyagandha to head towards Mangalore and other places of relevance. The journey from Karwar to Madgaon was a high-speed, non-stop sprint through long tunnels and steep rock-cuttings. The pilots seemed to be in a hurry to sign off their duty shift and hand over the train to their successors at Madgaon on time and the Locomotive was cooperating enough to achieve this. The needle hovered around the 100-110Kmph mark as the last few Kilometres to Madgaon were crunched with the train crossing the Karnataka-Goa border at Loliem. Finally, at quarter to four on the morning of January the 6th, 2014, we entered a rather sleepy looking Madgaon Junction. It was 03:45 and the train was 5 minutes ahead of schedule to make up for its stop-when-a-train-approaches run. I alighted here, thus ending the first leg of my journey while the train went its own merry way after a 15 minute halt.
To be continued...