[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by venki.bala

I didn't see anything in the newspapers or news. can anyone confirm? I have a friend who travels every weekend to Coimbatore. Trying to reach him and see if he saw anything. This is not the first time that this route kesineni has met with accident. Maybe they need to give proper rest to the drivers in this route.

7 dead, 13 injured in bus mishap in Anantapur - southindia - Andhra Pradesh - ibnlive

Found this on net while searching for the accident, but this happened on 19th at Anantapur.

[venki.bala]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

7 dead, 13 injured in bus mishap in Anantapur - southindia - Andhra Pradesh - ibnlive

Found this on net while searching for the accident, but this happened on 19th at Anantapur.

I think this is the one. I saw the snaps in Eenadu very bad one. I hope Kesineni learns from this one and atleast start having a third driver in these long routes.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by silversteed

You sure about that? Because I've seen a similar lever to activate/deactivate the retarder in a first generation Volvo B7R. But it was mounted on the dashboard, and not on the steering stalk.

What you said about the green switch and the handbrake lever are true. What I was referring to was the lever on the left side of the steering column.

Yesterday, I came in the same bus to Chennai and when asked whether the lever on the left side of the steering column is for retarder or not the driver said yes.

[binaiks]

Just made a Vijayawada-Bangalore journey in an APSRTC Garuda. Was on an emergency, unplanned trip (actually got off a train at Vijayawada while heading to Kolkata, and rushed back in a bus). Since I had no idea of the city, took at rick directly from the Railway station to the Bus Station (Pandit Nehru BS, VJA). Went straight to the APSRTC reservation counter, and got a ticket for the 1700hrs VJA-BNG Garuda (Service No: 3872). I took this ticket at 1530 hrs.

Spent some time in the BS doing some bus spotting. Saw this unique bus:



Looks like this is the old "Sheetal" city bus that were operated in Hyderabad. This bus was working Vijayawada-Guntur Non-Stop. Spotted one of such bus on the same route.There were two Marcopolos in the same route as well (No pics of them).

My bus (AP-29-Z-1800, of Vijayawada depot) was brought in 1640, for the 1700hrs departure. We had tight competition - there was an Airavat leaving at the same time (looked like a special service to me). My seat number was 29 - a right side window seat at the rear end of the bus.



The bus looked fresh outside - it was washed before being brought for departure. The front windshield had a huge crack, and it was crudely patched. The front left mirror was replaced with the desi manual one (thankfully a big mirror itself). This bus did not have the "mandatory" extra headlamps - thankfully.

Interestingly, this bus had only 41 seats - the first row had semi-sleeper seats, while the rest were regular push-back seats. The leg space was humongous. We started off at 1705 (by now the Airavat was gone). The bus had a Driver, Driver-cum-conductor and an attendant. The attendant was not in uniform (I've never seen them wear a uniform - guess they are contract staff). The attendant was helping passengers leave their luggage in the underbelly compartment and he was seen checking passengers' requirement individually.



The bus was in decent shape internally - the seats were clean and so were the curtains. The fixtures were all in place - there was an annoying rod fixed across the rooftop rack - this restricts the size of baggage heavily - but thankfully stops the baggage from falling down in case of sudden brakes or turns.

The drivers were well behaved - nice road etiquette. Less use of horn, and they used turn-indicators well in advance every time. They did a top speed of 95kmph (according to my gps) - stable driving, not much hard braking. The roads are under construction for a good part of the journey (Vijayawada to Guntur was in day light - I was awake upto Ongole).



The sad part is that this bus enters the bus stations on the way - we went into Guntur (1800/1815) and Ongole (2025/2108). There were ticket checkers as well - they checked all tickets near Guntur. The bus had some 30/41 passengers for most of the time. We lost a lot of time at Ongole - the bus was scheduled to depart from there at 2010hrs - we reached at 2025 only, and we departed at 2108hrs!! I think the halt was a dinner break - but the crew did not bother to announce any break. Thankfully, I got some snacks to eat during this break, and the lack of any dinner break did not harm much.

I slept soon after we left Ongole. I vaguely remember seeing Tirupathi BS (around 0230hrs or so). When I woke up in the morning, we were at Hoskote (0542 hrs). After that, we had drops at KR Puram (0555) and Tin Factory (0601). Most of the pax got off at Tin Factory. APSRTC buses do not go to Majestic (Kempegowda BS, Bangalore) - instead it goes to Shantinagar. We reached Shantinagar BS at 0623.

The particular bus terminates at Electronic City (I thanked my fortunes for that!). We left SNBS at 0630. I was dropped at Bommanahalli at 0653 hrs. The journey took close to 14 hours overall. The ticket fare was Rs. 994 (much expensive that private operators). The scheduled arrival at Bangalore was 0500hrs (according to the timetable displayed in the bus) - bus we reached Shantinagar only at 0623. A good 1h 23m late!

Extra points:
1. They provided 1lt water bottles to all passengers (and extra bottles were provided on request).
2. Proper blankets were provided - not the narrow shawls that we get in most other buses.
3. The blankets were packed in plastic bags. The blankets appeared very fresh - in fact, two sets of blankets are provided to the crew. So the ones used in one direction is not given to passengers in the return trip.
4. Legspace was awesome - the bus had only 41 seats.

[pypkmsrikanth]

As usual nice review Binai. The NH5 is undergoing 6 laning between Chennai - Vijayawada because of which progress is very slow in certain sections, especially between Vijayawada & Guntur. Incidentally Vijayawada has one of the busiest terminals both from the railways and roadways perspective.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by binaiks

...
Spent some time in the BS doing some bus spotting. Saw this unique bus:


Looks like this is the old "Sheetal" city bus that were operated in Hyderabad. This bus was working Vijayawada-Guntur Non-Stop. Spotted one of such bus on the same route.There were two Marcopolos in the same route as well (No pics of them).....

They are not Sheetal and are regular Viking SLF AC only.
Sheetal's are much smaller ones !

[Ashley2]

Shot during inaguration!
This was used in City service and been redirected to Intercity it seems.

@Binai - Was the seats changed or same moulded seats.

.
Mods: Can Merge these posts if req.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Shot during inaguration!
This was used in City service and been redirected to Intercity it seems.

@Binai - Was the seats changed or same moulded seats.

Nice design there. What are the specifiations? Viking SLF with 160bhp, or 225bhp CRS?

I'd always wanted to ask this question - why do body workshops design the front grills in such a way that they have to be kept open all the time? Can't they make some good looking yet functional grills to let in enough air for the engine? Or, is it that the operators are wary of the engine getting overheated, and keep the front gill open?

[Gansan]

^^I think they deliberately keep it open. I have seen remaining open even in many private Volvos.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by silversteed

Nice design there. What are the specifiations? Viking SLF with 160bhp, or 225bhp CRS?

I'd always wanted to ask this question - why do body workshops design the front grills in such a way that they have to be kept open all the time? Can't they make some good looking yet functional grills to let in enough air for the engine? Or, is it that the operators are wary of the engine getting overheated, and keep the front gill open?

They are BS II 160Hp ones.

IMO, many of these body builders including from SMK, Veera are not that keen in making if functional and only concentrate on the aesthetics part.

You can only look at the OEM designs and can conclude which is better looking and more functional because OEM do all the cooling trials keeping the grill designs.

Originally Posted by Gansan

^^I think they deliberately keep it open. I have seen remaining open even in many private Volvos.

Hope you are speaking about the rear flop's.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

They are BS II 160Hp ones.

Not powerful enough, I suppose?

IMO, many of these body builders including from SMK, Veera are not that keen in making if functional and only concentrate on the aesthetics part.

You can only look at the OEM designs and can conclude which is better looking and more functional because OEM do all the cooling trials keeping the grill designs.

The Marcopolo buses have their grill slats too narrow, while the AshLey bus has the grill wider. Different requirements, or Marcopolo also gone wrong with the design, like many other parts of the bus?

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by silversteed

Not powerful enough, I suppose?

May be just meeting the requirements.
AL did not recommend AC in these models but APSRTC wanted to try in this.

[vivekkp]

I travelled from Bangalore to Ernakulam by KSRTC airavat service on January 26th. It left Bangalore morning 7.30 and reached ernakulam only by midnight 12. The cause of delay was attributed to closure of road from wayanad to Calicut due to ghat work going on at thamarassery. This led to an extra running distance of 100km according to the driver. The driver was very upset as he had to take the same route next day morning for the return journey. A distance of 600km took nearly 16hrs and that too in a Volvo.

[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by vivekkp

I travelled from Bangalore to Ernakulam by KSRTC airavat service on January 26th. It left Bangalore morning 7.30 and reached ernakulam only by midnight 12. The cause of delay was attributed to closure of road from wayanad to Calicut due to ghat work going on at thamarassery. This led to an extra running distance of 100km according to the driver. The driver was very upset as he had to take the same route next day morning for the return journey. A distance of 600km took nearly 16hrs and that too in a Volvo.

Good to hear that they have a day service. Do you remember which route did it take for this extra kms? I still hope Kallada would be better for a day service as it operates via TN under 12 hrs.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Hope you are speaking about the rear flop's.

I mean the cover / cowl of the engine at the rear of the Volvos. Seen it kept partly open in many of them on the highway.