Around 15 years back, man, some crazy stuff happened on this train trip! This train used to kick off from Muzzafarpur and GKP on different days. Back then, NER used to hand out unreserved tickets and this train barely had any AC coaches, so snagging a day seat in sleeper class was quite doable. I was cruising from Babhnan to Barabanki. The train would roll into BV around 3 PM and we were expected to hit up Barabanki by 7 PM. The tracks were just one line from BV to Gonda, then they'd double up all the way to Burhwal, I reckon, before switching back to single line on Elgin Bridge over Saryu.

I scored a window seat and we smoothly passed Gonda with minimal delays. But all hell broke loose near Elgin bridge when we got held up for ages, waiting for other trains to pass. I think even the Vaishali zipped past us. Then, can you believe it, we got stuck for another hour at Jahangirabad Raj, just one stop away from our destination. Some folks in the coach even thought the engine had conked out! We ended up being delayed by a whopping 3.5 hours and barely covered 30 kilometers in all that time. We finally limped into Barabanki around 10:30 PM, over 3 hours off schedule.