[nagaraj15]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

BMTC's new electric buses, So-far, five of these have been delivered to BMTC and are parked at Kengeri.

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Will they make it mandatory that before the bus is put on the regular service all these polythene sheet covers are properly removed and put on service. It is too dirty and hangs at all lengths and touching ourselves make me to squirm

[WAM-4]

New 12m long Switch Mobility Manufactured E Buses have been purchased by BMTC and have hit the roads in Bengalooru. Route Nos. 276 and 401K have these buses apart from the other routes.

[airguitar]

Ah my favourite topic. Recently I came across this visualization: https://public.tableau.com/app/profi...tes/BMTCRoutes an awesome public tableau visualization as well as this page : https://narasimhadatta.info/bmtc_query.html, which is a pretty good and accurate website.

I have spent most of my childhood traveling from Hoskote to Jayanagar/Basavanagudi/Malleshwara for School/Pre University/University education. On a average it used to take me 1 hr 10 mins from Hoskote to Jayanagar 4th block. 1.5 hours to Malleshwara and a similar time to Basavanagudi for my graduates. It all started in the late 90s when we moved back to Bangalore after staying for a couple of years in another place in Karnataka.

Here are my most memorable (or forgettable) aspects

1. Getting Buspasses was a big ordeal. The amount of paperwork required, the silly reasons with which they rejected your application, the amount of time you had to stand in the queue, the harrassments by the officials, it was simply stuff of nightmares
2. There were only three 317 route numbers. I resented Hoskote having only 3 BMTC buses but KR Puram having dozens of them. CAF 132, CAF 317 were two buses and their registrations. We used to board the bus at the bus stand and wait for 40 mins for it to start.
3. School students were subject to harassment by conductors and drivers, the moment they saw "bus pass" type passengers, i.e. the school students, they would go a few metres ahead of the stop and stop, we used to run to the buses then - bags, food baskets and all - I always felt that they derived some vicarious pleasure out of making the children run
4. Footboards used to be crowded, no closing doors for those buses.
5. The doubledeckers on the 131 and 150 routes!
6. Most people liked the last row after the rear door to the left - it was airy, and you could get down easily without jostling with your copassengers if it was crowded
7. My favourite routes were 1E, 7/7E, 23, 23E and 188 as they took the shortest route possible to their destinations and also that they were "novel" routes
8. Over the years BMTC improved tremendously their routes and connectivity. Some routes such as the 328* routes that went from Hoskote to Sarjapur/Attibele, 280*/289* routes that went from Hoskote to Yelahanka and the 399* routes that went from Hoskote to Electornic City/Jigani/Chandapura areas were a huge hit with rural crowd. They still command a lot of footfall and are very important utility routes.
9. The H series buses such as 258H/317H which were limited stop services ( they existed for a brief while )
10. The smell of the vegetables, flowers being loaded into the buses at 6AM were unforgettable ( School on Saturdays started at 715AM, so Saturday buses were fun)
11. Staring at buses/routes at the terminuses at Shivajinagar/Majestic/KR Market was always fun - it felt like a microcosm of all Bengaluru dwellers.
12. The chaste-kannada speaking conductor on 82 route ( who used to call Harishchandra Ghat as Harishchandra Rudrabhoomi etc), the Upendra look-alike conductor on the 45E route, the blind man who played the flute through his nostrils at Majestic, the heady smell of Grandhige in the 90/90E bus routes from Majestic to Yeshwantpur railway station - oh man, they are all a part of my memories growing up
13. The names of the places and the quizzes around bus routes were a regular affair at school and college during breaks - 282A ( Meesegaana halli => Meese = Moustache was a hit in these quizzes )
14. My grandfather was a bus person too and when BTS published ( yes they did it religious every year, it was a well bound book with accurate details ) the annual timetable book, we used to transliterate from Kannada to English in neat handwriting.
15. Areas around Electornic city/Bannerghatta were mystic with places by names such as Haragadde, Heelalige, Sakalavara, Indlavadi.

Oh Nostalgia! I feel like an irrelevant person in this world with all my old memories.

[unk9ja]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Ah my favourite topic
Here are my most memorable
Oh Nostalgia! I feel like an irrelevant person in this world with all my old memories.

Bringing back old memories.
The thickest textbook was Kannada consisting of some 190 odd pages and we used to write the start and the destination of each bus across the page numbers.
Route number 41 was my favourite as it had double decker bus and we used to enjoy the breeze coming through the windows on the top deck while watching the traffic below.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by airguitar

Ah my favourite topic.

Good write up. Me too have been a rare user of BMTC. First time; way back in the late 1990s I had to daily commute from Malleshwaram to Residency road. Pushpak buses were introduced some where in this time period (the police patrol vehicles "Hoysalas" also made an entry at the same time frame). And I felt sorry for the driver-conductor who had to operate the bus and issue tickets. I had to change buses at Majestic/KBS. And if lucky I could get onto the double decker bus going towards Doopasandra Last Stop/Indira Nagar (Route 131??). Residency road etc was two way roads at that point of time. These journeys were to an institute for a training course. After this was done and landing on a job, stopped travelling by BMTC.

The next 'daily travel' via BMTC was in 2015-2016. By then BMTC had started running buses all the way to Attibele & Anekal. I was working for a company in Electronic City and staying near Chandapura. There was also buses from EC with schedules matching the arrival of trains at Heelalige RS. This was when I also took a BMTC monthly pass. This stopped when I changed my work place.

In 2019 again I started 'daily travel' from Chandapura towards ITPL. By then BMTC had introduced more routes like 399A, 328H etc. Getting a 399A from Hope Farm junction was good, and getting a seat quickly was even better. 399A and one particular conductor would always remain in memory. This route was also popular with lot of migrant labour work force and this one conductor did not like them. The Kannada expletives he used liberally against this group of people was outstanding! He was other wise an okay chap, even to people who could speak litte Kannada (like me). By this time BMTC also had come up with a Mobile App which could give route details and even approximate location of the buses. This went on for nearly 6-8 months, and then I changed my work place again. The new organization had cabs for commute.

I liked these bus journeys especially during the last two months at work place (when I was serving my notice period). The work pressure would have come down. And I would be in high hopes on the new job and new place. And sitting in the bus in the evening time, looking outside the window also makes me feel very nostalgic. The bus journeys allowed me to sit back, relax and think about my initial days at Bangalore and the bus journeys towards Residency road and the years gone by.

[condor]

BMTC signs deal with Tata Motors for 921 Electric buses: This could be the same e-bus expansion plan I had reported in post #150 on previous page.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/news...aeb67ee573ace9

Low floor buses under the FAME-II scheme, with a 12 year maintenance as part of the deal.

[condor]

Travelled in a BMTC Tata EV bus yesterday. While the ride was quite comfortable, the buses dont have a/c but have doors that are closed when the bus is moving. One disadvantage is that you cant get down at signals :| .. had to ride on till the stop half a km away and walk the extra distance.