[shrinz.vivek]

I have never been a fan of train travel mainly for 2 reasons

1. My childhood train travel memories are filled with dirty sleeper coaches and ticketless travelers storming the compartment at midnight
2. My dad is an enthusiastic driver ever since he was a boy and always preferred driving over any other form of travel

I too preferred to ride/drive everywhere until corporate travel introduced me to air travel; more to save time than for comfort.
I hated air travel since day one owing to the annoying security checks, long waiting times, cramped economy class seats and scary turbulence.

3 weeks of recent back-to-back travels to Delhi took a toll on my back and neck and sent me straight to the physiotherapist. (Thanks to the Dzire CNG replacing all Etios diesel taxis)

The long-term solution was as below: (I am quoting the doctor)

1. Do not sit in any other car other than an Innova (I am 6ft tall)
2. Avoid road travel
3. Do not sit for more than 30 minutes at a stretch.

So now began my workaround plan for my upcoming Chennai trip
With road travel out of question, the next option was by air. However due to the unique positioning of Chennai and Bengaluru airport relative to Bangalore city; all 3 modes of transport take approximately the same time (5~6hrs). With no significant savings in time, I felt its not worth tolerating the annoyance of air travel.

So last option was the train. I started googling and found that we have three classes of travel which try to mimic the business class model of flights in trains. The timings were super convenient, and I went ahead and booked whatever was available. And oh boy!! I was pleasantly surprised and super happy with the over all experience. This inspired me to write this essay. Please bear with me; ill try to be as concise as possible and focus only on things which caught my eye.

Ill divide this essay into three parts:

• A. Introduction to the three business classes.
• B. The food service.
• C. Some attention to detail which made me grin and smile.

Introduction to the three business classes.

1. Executive Anubhuti: (EA)
(I could not get this ticket as it was sold out. But I managed to spend some time in it during the journey just out of curiosity)
This is the most expensive coach. It comes in 2+2 configuration with individual TV screens; none of which were working. This was the only disappointment of the whole journey.
The seats were extremely plush and comfortable as you can see in the below image.
The major drawback here was the common arm rest in the middle.


2. Executive chair car: (EC)
I travelled in this class from Bengaluru to Chennai.
This is the second best coach. Seats are 2+2 here too but not as soft as EA. But it was a blessing in disguise for my fragile back.
Most of my observations are from this coach.

3. AC Chair car: (ACC)
I travelled in this during my return journey to Bengaluru.
This is the least luxurious in 3+2 seat configuration and accommodates more passengers/compartment and hence feels crowded. But still I felt it to be much better than cramped economy class air seats.


All three classes have more than required legroom, super comfortable air conditioning, good food and clean toilets. More on these later.

The food service.

The menu is the same for EA and EC. ACC gets a toned-down version. Quality and quantity are not compromised. Before I got to see the menu, I enquired with the attendant about the differences, and he told this “EA gets almonds and ACC gets groundnuts. EA gets 3 pcs of chicken in the biriyani and ACC gets two.”



Interesting “chai samagri” pack


I came across soup sticks for the first time. I tried it with butter and did not like it. Tried it raw and did not like it. Dunked it soup and finally gave up.


Some attention to detail which made me grin and smile.

The toilets were clean across all classes and had things like soap and toilet seat covers.


The spotless mirrors prove that someone is cleaning then regularly


Timetable is displayed prominently. There is another CHN-BLR Shatabdi apart from this.


There is a Khobeya board listing a lot of info. This particularly appeals to the Japanese in me. Note the AC temperature standard and duties of the attendant


Some more information on a wall. 10 years in a Japanese OEM has made me appreciate the concept of getting information without asking anyone. The fact that it is up to date is remarkable.



Leg room is a long as a half-litre water bottle. I was very tempted to take out my measuring tape and measure it but did not want to look like a Pakistani spy trying to replicate Indian Railways in Pakistan.


Cute coat hooks were everywhere. I hung my coat and used the remaining to route my laptop charger. It was interesting to see that there is no paint peel off even in the hook track. It is the railways over spec paint quality or am I missing something here?


Sun blinds can be opened, closed, or stopped midway to function as a sun visor.



Mopping and cleaning happen on a regular basis even during the journey.



Independent seat back trays are extremely strong and robust. It felt like it was diecast and not injection moulded. The backrest tilt of the front seat does not alter the tray level.



Adjustable leg rest. Sadly, it does not fold all the way up.




Smiling and friendly male attendants. Not as glamorous as their female air counterparts.


Independent arm rests are a nice touch. Not available in EA or ACC coach



Calling bell only in the EA coach. I did not use it. I preferred to walk to the pantry if I needed anything. That way I could avoid sitting continuously for more than 30 mins.



What can I say for this?


Summary:
In an era of cost cutting and quality compromises in the auto sector, the overengineered and robust railway hardware gave me a weird satisfaction.

My ticket told me that “IR recovers only 57% of cost of travel on an average”. As an honest taxpayer I am not complaining, because I am happy that my money is being used to provide business class experience to the common man.

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing! Moving thread to the CV forum as we discuss trains, ships & planes here. Will go to our homepage this week

[Rajeevraj]

Nice thread. Thanks for penning it down. Train travel definitely has a charm, nostalgia, comfort to it compared to other modes of transport.

You were lucky enough to experience the good part of it since the journey was in a premium train (Shatabdi) on a premium route (Bangalore-Chennai). Like you mentioned in the first line, a large part of the network is still serviced by older, poorly maintained coaches. Running times are same or worse than it was 20 years back(in spite of improved track infrastructure). Coach Structures, toilets, facilities all have shown only minor improvements.

From the several nice travelogues put up on railway travel in the forum, one would think that rail travel has improved by leaps and bounds. While there have been significant improvements-Electrification, track doubling, automatic signaling systems, LHB Coaches and Rakes and most recently the Tejas trains, in majority of the network, the progress is slow and we still have the overcrowded, slow, old coaches and trains.

Hopefully things will keep changing for the better.

[thanixravindran]

Great write up and thanks for the review. If I remember correctly, Anubhuti coach was introduced around 2017/2018 timeframe in Chennai - Bangalore sector. I have travelled in that only once with my wife around that time. It was a bit costly than EA but infotainment screen was working. Sadly it was showing only some information even then

And I believe only Mysore Shatabdi has Anubhuti coach and not the Bangalore Shatabdi. EA is the preferred option for my wife while travelling alone between MAS -SBC. I also observed that mostly it is filled with women traveling alone or with kids. You don't have to jostle with men to get up or move in the regular coach of Shatabdi which has 3 seat configuration. From your pictures, it looks like food remains the same since ages Beyond Shatabdi, Double decker is the most horrible of the lot.

[binaiks]

Anubhuti (EA) is being discontinued now. IR has issued orders to dismantle the LCD screens and offer EA coaches as EC instead.

[deathwalkr]

Nice writeup. My only grouse with IR is with the reservation system for selfish reasons. Booked a ticket for 4, got two pairs of side berths on extreme ends of the coach! Now my wife and i are planning how to manage with two minor kids

And this was for a journey 2 months ahead. Wish the railways would allow berth booking like in airlines and i do not mind paying a premium for that!

[.HEM]

Wow, great writeup. It has been 8 years since I travelled by train in India. After reading your thread, I'm planing to take a trip in this train at least to experience the "feel good" factor.

[SR-71]

Lovely review. Last month I had to do 4 back-to-back trips to Chennai and chose to use the Shatabdi train as the weekday traffic meant getting in and out of both cities would easily add couple of hours by road. Plus the roads between Vellore and Chennai is in bad shape. On one occasion I used the morning Shatabdi from Bangalore which only had the Executive class while on the remaining 3 occasions I used the evening Shatabdi from Bangalore and the morning one from Chennai which had this new Anubhuthi class.

I really couldn’t figure out the difference between the two classes though or why I was paying a few hundred rupees more for the Anubhuthi class. Except for the nonfunctioning seat-to-seat TV, trays in arm rest and the pleasing blue colored seats, everything else including the seat counts and 2x2 arrangement seemed to be the same in both classes. If I have to make a choice again, I will still pick the Anubhuthi class as it was a wee bit less crowded than the executive class which was full the one time I travelled in it.

However, the one seat I would avoid in these 2 classes are the middle row where the seats are facing each other. On the one occasion I used tatkal reservation in Anubhuthi, I got the middle row which was so annoying. Thankfully I found an empty seat once the train departed and I shifted. The coaches themselves still had a lot of rough edges. On one of the trip, the AC failed and it took them 45 minutes to fix it. Other than that, it was decent as I could sleep every time I took the morning train from Chennai.

[shashanka]

Thank you for a great thread starter, shrinz.vivek! Our experience (albeit long distance, Mumbai>Lucknow>Mumbai and Mumbai>Kolkata>Mumbai mostly), has been dismal. And left me feeling we are the victims of a cosmic conspiracy.

The Duronto 2nd AC (Mumbai>Kolkata>Mumbai) which serves passably decent fare (all meals and snacks) could not surmount the dirty toilet barrier, which remains in a nauseous state all along.

But your experience gives us hope that one day these other trains too will.....

[MT_Hyderabad]

This thread took me back 20 years, when I travelled few times between Delhi and Lucknow and Delhi and Roorkee in Shatabdi. Everything, including the food delivery, is exactly the same. I had to recheck the date of creation of this thread. Kudos to your efforts.

[lina]

The door photo sums up everything thats wrong with the railways. Not one fitting is standardised. Almost every bolt, knob, door, window is a hack-job even in 1st AC. There is absolutely no consistency or guarantee of quality and that is what is really frustrating.

I regularly travel by train and it really depresses me that after all these years we cant have platforms that arent sheltered from the rain, no uniform signage, very unpredictable accessibility etc. We keep hearing about "airport-style stations". None of these are sheltered from the rain. Even the newly opened swanky fully air-conditioned SMVT station in Bangalore doesnt have rain-proof boarding like in Chennai central or CST Mumbai.

Many tier-2 and 3 stations are terrible. Even the ones inside big cities. Examples are Banaswadi, Karmelaram etc in Bangalore. In Bangalore even the main SBC station has unwalkable, narrow platforms with huge stretches having no roof. In Belgaum the 1st AC coach was outside the platform.

A lot of money is being spent in modernising. While the electrification and doubling are good, the comfort and accessibility aspects are not being addressed.

[masterChief007]

A Train travel always brings in sweet memories from childhood for me, right from steam engines, to the Rajdhani food (especially the ice cream post dinner). For me this mode of transport has marked all my life's important travels from childhood. Many a times just for fun I have hopped on a train, travelled overnight to a station and then took the next train back ! Also at night the sweet sound the train makes is no less than a mother's lullaby.

Those who are in Bangalore, Do try the Vistadome from YPR to MAJN (reverse route from Mangalore doesnt give the rear 270 degrees glass window view). It is a nice one time experience especially if you have kids, passes through the green western ghats. Actually there used to be a railway line trek near sakleshpur quite a few years back, which is banned I think now.

[subramak]

Originally Posted by shrinz.vivek

I have never been a fan of train travel mainly for 2 reasons

To clarify a few things here. Executive class was launched originally by Madhav Rao Scindia for the NDLS JHS/Bhopal Shatabdi. There was an even more luxurious version in some trains between HWH and Dhanbad which was called AC First class chair car with around 30 seats and every seat was like a single seater sofa.

While there is a difference in fare between Anubhuti and Executive class, the amenities arent quite different. IR has generally been screwed up in their commercial offerings and product categorization. They have at last count the following classes of travel, I wouldnt be surprised if a missed a couple of other pricing options

1. AC First Class
2. Two tier AC Sleeper
3. AC Sleeper Three tier
4. AC Sleeper Three Tier Economy
5. AC Three tier sleeper Garib Rath
6. Executive Chair Car
7. Anubhuti
8. AC Chair Car
9. Garib Rath AC Chair car
10. Sleeper class
11. second sittting
12. AC Three Tier Humsafar ( pricing varies from standard AC 3 tier)
13. Antyodaya - Unreserved
14. Unreserved
15. First Class - almost non existent

The quality of Chennai Bangalore Shatabdi is good because it uses the original rake supplied from Germany. Other rakes do not have the same quality.

Best, Subramanian

[84.monsoon]

Nice write up. From November 10th, we will have one more train option for Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore route. The fourth Vande Bharat express in the country is being introduced on the route.

However, it is not clear how much faster than the Shatabdi will it go? The Shatabdi is already a very fast train covering the Cheenai- Bangalore segment in as little as 4 hours 45 minutes!

Indianrailinfo has published the tentative time table for the Vande Bharat with a 5.50 am departure from Chennai arriving at KSR Bangalore at 10.25 am. This makes it only slightly faster than the Shatabdi - just 10 minutes faster to be precise for this segment. According to the site, it reaches Mysore at 12.30, i.e., in 6 hours 40 minutes - 20 minutes faster than Shatabdi. But I would have thought IR would do the Mysore-Chennai segment in the morning and Chennai - Mysore in the afternoon for Vande Bharat as there is no point in running another fast train in the same direction just 10 minutes ahead of Shatabdi, while there is no train in the other direction in that part of the day, except the shorter Bengaluru- Chennai Shatabdi.

[SR-71]

Originally Posted by subramak

The quality of Chennai Bangalore Shatabdi is good because it uses the original rake supplied from Germany. Other rakes do not have the same quality.

Not sure what you mean by the original rake supplied from Germany. If you are talking about LHB coaches, they are manufactured in ICF Perambur & RCF Kapurthala under technology transfer. We have been doing that for around 2 decades now. I doubt the original train sets that were imported are in service anywhere. At least both pairs of Shatabdi in the Chennai-Bangalore had the ICF name plates.

Now that the novelty of LHB rakes suffer a lot of shortcomings, maintenance is so-so and there are one too many rough edges in the insides of the coaches, irrespective of the classes they serve.