u/Professorjoey

Good to see some people are still using the old-school way. @TVC

When was the last time you saw someone using the time table book. 😃

This is Avadh Assam (15909/15910), a daily train running between Lalgarh Junction (Rajasthan) and Dibrugarh (Assam).

Someone told me it’s India’s longest-running daily express train. Not sure if that’s true, but it sounded believable. It covers 3116 km and takes more than 60 hours to reach its destination.

Btw… not a good train to travel on (personal opinion) 😂

I was having lunch at a small dhaba, 4,000 km away from home, when I suddenly noticed the bottled water. It had ‘Vellam’ written on it!

Who would expect a water brand in Arunachal Pradesh to have that name?

After checking, I came to know that the company was run by a Malayali person.

Always feels great when you find a little connection to home while being so far away from it.

Listen to the audio. 🎧

This was recorded at Chandigarh Junction railway station a few weeks ago. The entire station (platforms) was filled with the sound of common mynahs.

Unbearably loud.

This is Jonha railway station, a small railway station near the famous Jonha waterfalls in Ranchi, situated 29 kms from Ranchi.

This is situated on the Ranchi Junction - Muri Junction route.

The interesting factor about this station is, you can get a train to Jonha from Ranchi, but you won't get one back to Ranchi, more like a one way route!

And on the return journey (Muri - Ranchi), the trains stop at another station called Gautamdhara, which is not present on the onward route (Ranchi - Muri).

I don't know how common or rare it is, not sure about the reason either, this is my only experience with something like this.

These pictures are from December 2019 — my first time on any kind of toy or heritage train. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was a great experience, even though I slept through most of the journey because of its slow pace and because I hadn’t slept the night before! 😂

Which is your favorite toy train in India?

So I was passing through Bagdogra, and it was raining. It looked really nice in the rain, so I took some pictures.

As a solo traveller, the last thing you want is to get sick. And nothing can get you sick more easily than water.

Initially, I was really uncomfortable eating outside as well, but now I’m fine with it. But when it comes to water, I still can’t drink anything other than bottled water.

And bottled water isn’t completely safe either, with all the copy products and refilled bottles. 

During one of my earlier journeys through East and Northeast India, I came across an incredible number of duplicates and local water brands.

This time, I expected the same, but happily, I mostly found well-known brands instead.

What do you prefer? Bottled water, or are you comfortable drinking anything?

This is a picture from 2019. I travelled from Thiruvananthapuram North (Kochuveli then) to Madgaon on this train, in a general compartment!

Back then, this train used to have 6 general compartments, and because it was a superfast train with limited stops, those compartments were mostly empty. (Most people were sleeping comfortably.)

That was my longest general compartment journey (17 hours) at the time, and also the most comfortable one till date.

Post-COVID, they reduced the number to 4. I haven't travelled on it after that.

Are there any Long distance SF Express trains nowadays with 6 general compartments?

So, this picture is from Bilaspur Railway Station, taken a year ago. There’s a board that says “Wait List Chart” and displays information including the passenger’s name, coach, seat, and PNR.

I haven’t seen this anywhere else in India. Have you?

Is this something specific to BSP or SECR? I didn’t notice anything like this in Raipur either.

This is Sabroom Railway Station (SBRM) in Tripura, the last station in Tripura (and India), very close to the Bangladesh border.

Now that I think about it, this is probably the farthest I’ve travelled from home within India. It’s a little more than 4,900 km away by train!

Can you guess where my home is? 😃

Which is the farthest railway station you’ve visited in India?

So, this train ( 58666) I travelled on between Sanki and Hatia (Ranchi) had only ONE compartment.

Like: Engine – GEN – SLR – done! 😃

If you look carefully at the first picture, you can literally see the end of the train! I’ve never seen a train this short. Have you? 😃

By the way, my experience is from last year. Now it has two general compartments, according to “Where Is My Train.”

This was my first time seeing something like this. Some of you might have seen it before, I’m not sure how common or rare it is.

📍 Bhopal Junction.

Some of you might remember my "Tatkal Pro" post a few days ago. Here's what happened after that.. 

I was supposed to travel on the Vivek Express from Dimapur to Thiruvananthapuram. I was confident I would get a Tatkal ticket, believing I was extremely good at it, but it turned out I wasn't good enough.

The only options in front of me were either to take a flight home from Imphal (expensive) or just see how it goes with connecting train options.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I got a Tatkal ticket on the Kamrup Express from Dimapur to Howrah.

So my plan was to get a Tatkal ticket on the Coromandel Express (12841) to Chennai from Howrah, then another Tatkal to Thiruvananthapuram from Chennai, which I thought was cakewalk for my expertise in Tatkal booking (🥲).

Day 1 - 8 hours inside a Tata Winger to reach Dimapur from Imphal, then a 12-hour wait at Dimapur station.

Day 2 - Early morning train to Howrah (3AC). I was supposed to book a Howrah-Chennai Tatkal ticket, but RailOne had other plans. It didn't let me even try due to its recent bug, so I had to reschedule the whole plan.

Day 3 - Plan B was to take the Falaknuma Express (12703), travel to Vijayawada in the general compartment (19 hours), then make a few train changes to reach home.

I took a general ticket and came to the platform 3 hours early, only to see 300 people waiting in the queue to board the general compartment. Wow. Still waited there to avoid entering into a wagon tragedy.

Plan C was to get out of West Bengal at the earliest. There was a train (12821) on a nearby platform to Bhubaneswar. I boarded the crowded train, had to wait for 4 hours to get a seat, but reached Bhubaneswar at 5 PM.

Inside the train, I tried to get Tatkal tickets on a few routes: Bhubaneswar to Vijayawada, and even for the easiest route, Chennai to Thiruvananthapuram, I didn't get a chance (RailOne bug).

But I got current booking availability (22605) to Vizianagaram from Bhubaneswar. I booked it and planned to request the TTE to extend the ticket further south.

Just before boarding the train to Vizianagaram, I found current availability on the Coromandel Express (The one I failed to get Tatkal!! ) to Chennai from Visakhapatnam (next stop after Vizianagaram), and only 1 seat was available. I booked it without much thought.

Day 4 - I got down at Visakhapatnam instead of Vizianagaram and caught the next train on time to Chennai. Reached Chennai on time, then boarded the Ananthapuri Express (20635) - I got current availablity for 1/3 of the distance, remaining I spend inside a crowded general compartment! 

Day 5 - Reached Thiruvananthapuram at 9:30 AM! 

Long story short, instead of spending 66 hours inside Vivek's 3AC compartment, I had to spend an Extra 12 hours and more money, travelling on 5 trains in general, sleeper, and 3AC to somehow reach home. There were times I regretted not taking a flight, but in the end, it's all about the experience. It wasn't a bad one.

Thanks for reading!

I always thought I loved travelling, of course, who doesn’t? But I never really had the opportunity to do so.

Until I was 18, the only places I had been to were restricted to three districts in the southernmost part of India.

Then I started travelling. It began with day trips, extremely budget ones. Then I moved on to overnight trips, all alone, on a very low budget, against my mother’s wishes 😂

One of my biggest wishes was to travel through all the states in the country. It wasn’t about staying for weeks and exploring each state in detail, but just to pass through all of them, halting in bigger cities for a few days, simply to get the feeling.

By January 2025, I had been to a few states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Puduchery (UTs), and Kerala (my home state).

I initially planned a 100-day trip to cover the remaining states, but couldn’t go ahead due to time constraints.

So I broke it down into three parts.

The first leg was East and Northeast India: Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Tripura (I couldn’t make it to Manipur then).

The second leg covered the remaining southern states, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Goa.

The third and final leg was the northern mainland and whatever remained - Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and finally Manipur, where I'm currently!

Apart from this, I’ve been to all the Union Territories except Ladakh, Lakshadweep, and Andaman.

It feels surreal even thinking about it.

And the best part, I’ve done most of this as a solo traveller. During the third leg, I had a friend with me for about a week and a half, but apart from that, it’s been mostly solo.

The goal was to travel through all the states, and I’ve achieved it. But I also understand that I haven’t seen even 2% of the country. That’s something I’ll make sure to keep exploring for the rest of my life.

Thank you for reading!

I used to think I was a pro at booking Tatkal tickets, I’ve only failed once in 20+ attempts.

But today, the Vivek Express completely humbled me. AC booking at 10 AM still gave me some hope, but sleeper at 11 went from WL 65 to “Not Available” in just 4 seconds!

How do tickets even sell out that fast? Insane.