Beyond the Limits of Triund.... Part 2: The Eventful Jallianwalabagh Express Journey

Our train stood tall on platform number 12 and all credits to SDAH CDO for maintaining the rakes wonderfully! Our coach was S-10 and seats were 79 and 80. Although it was a track-side Side Lower and Side Upper Beth, it was still the last cubicle in that coach. This meant the light near the washbasins would be on all the night and might distract our sleeps dearly.

Nevertheless, our coach was excellent and the train was reasonably empty. We kept our bags and I ran ahead to check the locomotive. It was Howrah WAP-7 leading us till our destination. We were excited to spend the next 1650km at a top speed of 130kmph.

It was sharp 13.10pm and a blazing honk meant our journey is on! Slowly, we moved out of the platform towards BNXR.

After crossing BNXR and DDJ, we climbed up the ramp towards Baranagar Road and Dakshineshwar. We zoomed past both the stations at nearly 70-75kmph speed and crossed the magnificent Vivekananda Setu over River Hooghly.

At about 13.45pm, we were near Dankuni and this was the point we started our high-speed run.

The thing about a WAP-7 locomotive is the sheer ability to accelerate within a very short time span. In no time, we notched up the sectional MPS of 130kmph and this felt unbelievably smooth.

We reached Burdwan at 14.37 and witnessed a decent surge of passengers, boarding the train from the station. By this time, our coach looked full and barely a few seats were remaining. Shortly after, we left Burdwan and marched towards Durgapur, which is about 64km from this point. We reached Durgapur at a short delay of 5 minutes and saw all the remaining seats getting filled. As curious railfans, and with the help of NTES and WMT, we traced out the reason of the delay!

It was the popular Shaktipunj Express to Jabalpur, which was ahead of us by barely a few kilometers. Despite having a slack-filled and a lower MPS than ours, ER decided to make us follow Shaktipunj all the way till Dhanbad!

This meant we couldn't continue much with the high-speed running schedule. Whenever we got closer, we were held up and this was frustrating. Shaktipunj, literally halted at every small stations possible and has a large slack for us to overtake.

This wasn't the case as we were delayed at Durgapur, Asansol and even at Kumardubi, where our train halts. In the end, we reached Dhanbad at around 17.20pm, gaining a delay of 10 minutes. This was the point where Shaktipunj takes a diversion towards Chandrapura and Barkakhana, while we would take the Grand Chord Line to Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Jn, or more popularly Mughalsarai Jn.

Around 17.30pm, we departed towards our next halt, Gaya Jn. The thing about our train is it's a super skipper outside West Bengal. It barely has frequent and pointless halts and skips one major station enroute, Prayagraj Jn. This, backed with an aggressive time-table set, we were on course of yet another storming 130kmph run towards Gaya.

We skipped stations like NSCB Gomoh, Parasnath, Hazaribagh Road. We overtook Kolkata Jammu Tawi Express at Hazaribag Road and marched steadily towards the only Ghat Section of the route, the Gurpa-Gujhandi Ghats. Our train was running behind the popular Ranchi Patna Jan Shatabdi Express, which was barely a few kilometers ahead.

As per the TT, we were to overtake it at Koderma Jn, where JS has a halt and we don't. However ECR didn't think this way and found to keep us behind Jan Shatabdi till Gaya.

We picked up a steady 15 minutes delay, which we felt might be covered before Mughalsarai or at most, before Prayagraj.

We still were miles ahead of the closest Rajdhani Express coming from Bhubaneshwar, which was around 80km behind us.

About 15 minutes later, we received the starter to proceed ahead. By this time, rain started drizzling heavily. Plus, with a busy day up-ahead, we made it a point to have ample sleep.

Had it been the Suraj till 2013, sleep was secondary for me. As the railfan bug in me would love watching trains crossing, while my eyes remained glued even in the darkest of surroundings. Gone are those merry and hyper-active days to a more humble and wiser version of me, who doesn't miss a chance to sleep, even in the smallest time-gap possible.

We were on the main line to Prayagraj Jn and on to NCR, the dreaded zone for many SF and Non-SF trains of the past. With over-saturated tracks, finding a time slot with hundreds of mail/ express/ premium trains and freights, missing a time slot in the zone means the train would be treated as a mere afterthought. Unless you are the Rajdhanis, the controlling of a slot-missed train would be on the controller's mercy!

Initially we cruised pretty well and were slowed down at almost every station till Chunar. Meanwhile, Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani was almost near DDU and the distance kept on reducing drastically. With Howrah and Sealdah Rajdhanis delayed by 10 minutes each, the only Rajdhani that came to our minds were Bhubaneshwar.

However, at DDU arrivals, there was one more Rajdhani, which ran ahead of Howrah and Sealdah and just behind Bhubaneshwar. It was the daily Rajdhani from Dibrugarh (02423).

With our next day tension of getting screwed up in the supposed "Bermuda Triangle of Indian Railways" loomed darker than ever. With every slowdowns, both these Rajdhanis were chasing with full clearance.

I saw some Rajdhani crossings, and decided to sleep till Cheoki Jn. I woke up just before the station and we crawled over Yamuna Bridge near Prayagraj. We skipped PRYJ at about 2.10 am in the mid night and CNB was some 195km from this point.

Jallianwalabagh Express till this point had a satisfactory run in this region, with still a clear 30-40km distance from the nearest Rajdhani chasing down. If we get a great clearance, we don't see a reason how Rajdhanis would catch us up, as both we and Rajdhanis have same stoppage pattern and top speed in the region.

Still, a Rajdhani is a Rajdhani. The reason why these trains are so preferred by the common mass is hardly unsurprising. The supreme track clearance and the punctuality are of a different level altogether. All the East-Indian Rajdhanis, except Agartala and Patna Rajdhanis (i.e those running via NCR Allahabad Div) have a close time slot. Each one having a 10 minute margin with each other from DDU to NDLS and the slot is maintained perfectly on almost daily basis.

Despite being a normal SF train, Jallianwalabagh Express has transformed into somewhat a ripper in its own standards. I was amazed by the run till a point, when we were slowed down at around 4.10am, and were slowly looped to a station called Bindki Road!

It was perhaps our date with destiny! I was half asleep, and saw the station has a loop in the middle and the mainline on the other side. I tracked WMT and saw Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express speeding towards this station.

A 130 kmph thrashing was the first of the two more eventual thrashing to come. Me and Arkya couldn't help but praise the supreme clearance the train received. At one point, it was some 170 km behind us, and now it overtook us within 8 hours of chasing. Although we faced technical issues and were caught by nearly an hour worth delay, this was still exceptional for overtake to happen.

After some minutes passed and at a quiet roadside station, we heard one more shrill honk and this time it was Dibrugarh Rajdhani to do the thrashing.

This was followed by the final overtake by the first Rajdhani of IR, Howrah Rajdhani smashed past us at near MPS.

At this point, it was nearly 4.40am and we wondered Sealdah and Ranchi to follow the trend. To our surprise, we were given the green signal to leave. Arkya, meanwhile was confident of us getting looped somewhere after CNB to allow Sealdah and Ranchi avenge the final straw.

At Old Delhi Jn.

I got us, two boxes of Janata Meals. I have never seen such a neat and clean package of a Janata Meal box before. At 10.40am, we got our starter and left northwards to our destination, Ambala Cantonment.

The Well Packed Janata Meals

Just a few months prior, we heard the news of Jallianwalabagh Express, being one of the first trains to hit 130kmph MPS in between Delhi and Ludhiana.

We skipped the suburbs of Delhi and crossed Sonepat in a while. The run wasn't that smooth and was marred by a couple of slowdowns and a delayed Jaynagar Amritsar Clone Express running ahead of us.

The train and the road route towards Chandigarh from Delhi, follows adjacent to each other at most of the times. The train route sees some high profile Shatabdi and Vande Bharat Express in a day.

Still, we were cruising by all means and were at Ambala home signal by 12.50pm. We were caught up thanks to the train we were trailing and saw a crossing with Chandigarh Shatabdi bound to Delhi.

We entered Ambala at 13.12 pm in the afternoon, with a delay of 1hr and 17 minutes.

An eventful train journey was finally over! Stay tuned to the next part, featuring the journey from Ambala to Mcleodganj and our first experience in staying at a backpacker hostel.

PUBLISHED BY

thetrackwalk by Suraj

Welcome everyone to my world of Railfanning and Traveling. I am Suraj Iyer, a Computer Science graduate by education, seeking out numerous expedition to numerous railfanning spots with railfans and even love to travel with my group of friends. In my blog, I will share all the possible details about all the possible journeys to my remembrance and even share about my future railfanning/ travel stories to date. Many may wonder who is a railfan? As you will go through some of my blogs in the near future, your answers will be embedded in it. As a traveler, I set up myself for tough trips, sometimes planned and sometimes unplanned. All the small or large incidents will be present in my blog in the near future. Welcome to The Track Walk by Suraj Balasubramanian Iyer :)