17020/Σ tirupati marathwada daily ΣChain

Krishna Express, with this name, it's very common to hear terms such as crawler, late runner, too many halts, never comes and goes on time, patience tester, fast passenger, etc., etc. Well, all these might be true, but this legendary train has its own place in the timeline of Indian Railways. One of the oldest running trains, it recently completed its 50 years of service. A lifeline of rural Telangana & Andhra Pradesh, it connects devotees with Lord Balaji in Tirupati. Most of the passengers on this train are from simple village backgrounds who don't know much about reservations (might be irrelevant now, at least back then it was so). They can come to your reserved seat and may request you to give some space to sit with an innocent smile on their face :). If I could give another name for this train, I would name it as "Temple Express" for the fact that it not only connects to Tirupati but en route, it touches many temple towns like Kinwat (Renuka Devi temple, Mahurgad), Basar (Saraswati Temple), Hyderabad (Capital City), Yadadri (Yadagiri Gutta Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple), Warangal (Bhadrakali Temple), Vijayawada (Indrakiladri Kanakadurga Temple), Sri Kalahasti (Srikalahasteeshwara Temple/Vayu Lingam), and Tirupati (Venkateswara Swamy/Balaji Temple). As a kid, I did my first train journey by Krishna Express from Warangal to Mahabubabad, a distance of 60 Kms back in the early 2000s. I still remember, a night before my first train journey, I couldn't sleep out of my excitement that I will be getting into a train tomorrow. That day my parents couldn't get a seat as the train was crowded but they requested a lady who was on an aisle seat to make me sit beside her. As the train was going, I was continuously looking through the window. After some time, that lady asked me "what are you looking at so interesting?" I looked at her once and again started looking through the window. She didn't know that it was my first train journey. Nostalgic moment for me :). All thanks to Indian Railways. While thinking of writing this blog, I noticed that this train was introduced on 2-Oct-1974, which means recently this legendary train completed its 50 years of service. I have seen birthday wishes on other legendary trains like Telangana, Secunderabad Rajadhani, etc., but not a single birthday wish for this train. Belated Happy Birthday Krishna Express :).