MAS-SBC-MAS TRIP (Continued...):
For PART-1:/blog/post/2144306.
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PART-2(SBC-MAS):
Date:28.01.2017(Saturday)
Train:12692...
more...

Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam - Chennai Central SF Express
Loco: ET WAP4 22883/RPM WAP7 30393
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I had taken this train instead of 8 Mail due to the foreseen delayed runs of KK. This is my first journey in this train. This is a relatively obscure choice,atleast as far as I am concerned, between SBC and MAS. I had reached the Majestic station by 21:45 hrs. The scheduled arrival at SBC is 22:13 hrs. But the display showed that the train was running with a delay of 23 mins. And there was no PF allotted yet. Meanwhile, the display boards showed that 8 Mail was scheduled to leave at 01:00 hrs(delay of 2hrs 20 mins, a considerable improvement). There were announcements being made on the rescheduling of Mail. Passengers who had much expectation on Mail, wore a sign of disappointment,drowsiness and anger on their faces. The MAS-SBC SF had arrived onto PF.No.2 led by WAP7 30411. It had Amazon advertisements all over its coaches. The Shatabdi from MAS was expected at 22:30 hrs while the Lalbagh Express was expected to arrive at 22:05 hrs. Hampi Express departed bang on time. UBL-SBC JS arrived on time. The entire station premises was resounding with EMD honking. At sharp 22:05 hrs, Lalbagh arrived with WAP7 honking madly delayed by half an hour.
For a change,Our train was given PF.No.1, the sole property of 8 Mail. Now Shatabdi's arrival time changed to 22:35 hrs. This clearly meant that our train would be delayed even more. 12027 arrived at PF.No.7 with its standard delay of 10 mins at 22:40 hrs. Then the announcement for our train was made as"Your kind attention please! Train No.12692 SSPN-Chennai Superfast Express coming from SSPN is expected to arrive on PF.No.1 at 10:50 PM.". Note that SSPN is announced as "S S P N" and not "Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam". The clocked ticked by. It was at 23:00 hrs(scheduled departure of 12692 from SBC), that a bright beam shone on the rake of MAS-SBC SF. And there it was,our train hurried onto the PF hauled by WCR's red hunk ET WAP4 22883 with twin tone honking. The train was empty. Not a soul was seen inside the train including general coaches. The passengers who wanted to board general coaches of Mail scrambled into these empty coaches of 12692 without any second thought even as the train was pulling in. The train came to a stop with a jerk(CBC effect). My coach was S5 2009 made coach. It was evident that it had undergone POH. I was given a LB(non-track side). Charging points were present.
Now I was wondering which loco will take charge of our train for the SBC-MAS leg. There was 30393 waiting for its duty at PF.No.2 at the BNC end right behind MAS-SBC SF. Usually,as far as I know, 8 Mail's link takes this position. As soon as Mail gets shunted and the shunter decouples from the rake and moves to the siding, the loco will reverse onto PF.No.1 and coupling takes place. But its a fact that 30393 will not haul Mail as Mail has LSA with Lalbagh Express. As expected, 30393 coupled to our train without any movement, jerks or obstacles as it happens usually in CBC rakes. The crew at SBC must be lauded for the same. To put it in a nutshell, the loco which brought me was going to take me back. The Shatabdi was meanwhile shunted in order to receive BWT-SBC Express wjich will continue as MYS Passenger.
At 23:15 hrs, P7 gave a long whining toot and we were off. We clearly the points slowly and accelerated out of the limits of SBC. Led by a RPM WAP7, BWT Express was waiting at SBC outer for us to clear its way. The LPs were in a joyous mood which they expressed through honking. We halted at BNC for about 4 mins. Passengers were expecting LTT-CBE(Kurla) Express which too was delayed. We skipped BNCE and BYPL at MPS. We had a 2 min halt at KJM. There were WDG4 twins(one of them was GY's 12605) and KJM alco twins at KJM. Once again, we touched MPS and arrived at WFD. After a minute halt, we left WFD at 00:00 hrs. WFD-BWT was covered in flat 38 mins.One thing that proved to be a disturbance was the jerks and kicks as a consequence of CBC due to numerous slowdowns and powerful acceleration of P7. It was indeed a nightmare intervening a much required good night's sleep.
As a consequence of one such jolt, I woke up to find that we were accelerating out of AJJ. AJJ-PER was done non-stop without any clearance problem. After a quick halt at PER,P7 accelerated madly only to slow down for the PSR of 30 at VJM. We switched onto tracks towards MAS. We were stopped at BBQ for unknown reasons. As we were waiting for starter,a light TNP alco coming from BZA end went through PF.No.7 into BBQ end. Simultaneously, late running 22644 PNBE-ERS SF led by ED WAP4 22603 entered from the BZA side onto PF.No.6. The entire train had almost crossed the PF limits when we got proceed signal. We witnessed a parallel run or race rather till MAS. P7 quickly accelerated and overtook 22644. 22644 re-overtook us. This went on in an alternate manner. After a series of overtakes and re-overtakes, both the trains simultaneously pulled onto adjacent PFs(5-22644 and 6-12692) at 5:10 hrs. We were early by 5 mins. LGD WAP4s 22213 and 22264 were seen resting after their duties.
Overall, this train got best sectional clearance between SBC and MAS for this. But it can never equal Mail.
Overall rating:
Cleanliness- 10/10.
Comfort-5/10(Needless to say,P7+ CBC rake).
Speed & Punctuality-10/10.