The method behind the madness

Many thanks to one and all for the enthusiastic support and good wishes. Many of you have also left suggestions on possible detours and alternative routes. We did consider a few of them in our planning stage and a few tempted us later as well.

Our final route however was chosen keeping in mind the leave that office would allow us and feasible connections and more importantly – make it to the end while retaining our sanity.

The original plan was to do the trip isimply diesel – with no complications involved. But then it would have been too easy, all we had to do was to get to Trivandrum from Kanniyakumari and catch one of the Kerala – Gujarat expresses that ply via the Konkan Railway. At Ahmedabad we could have switched to the Ahmedabad – Jammu Express and that would have been it – no sweat. THAT – certainly was not the idea.

Mohan playfully suggested that it’d be fun if we through the middle of the country – and that too under wires to make it more difficult, and then we added the MG and NG bit as well just for fun

We started with the South – North approach first – that was abandoned pretty soon after connections refused to work out. Then came the north south approach. We desperately wanted to do the North Rajasthan MG lines near Bikaner / Hanumangarh, especially the canal loop, but that too didn’t work.

It took us at least 10 days to hammer out the routes, timings and connections, and here it is:

We get to Udhampur from New Delhi on 9th August By the Uttar SK express – then on ….

10th August (Fri)
————
4JU DMU (GS) – 55km
Udhampur : 10:20
Jammu Tawi : 11:50

2414 Puja Express (SL) – 731km

Jammu Tawi : 18:15
Alwar : 07:26

11th August (Sat)
————
184 Bhiwani-Mathura Pass. (GS) – 123km
Alwar : 09:55
Mathura Jn : 13:30

5314 Mathura-Aishbagh Express (2A) – 529km

Mathura Jn : 19:25
Aishbagh : 10:20

12th August (Sun)
————
5009 Chitrakut Exp (SL) – 582km

Lucknow Jn : 17:30
Jabalpur : 07:55

13th August (Mon)
—————–
7609 PNBE-PAU Exp (SL) – 245km

Jabalpur : 11:15
Itarsi : 15:00

285 INDB-CWA Pench Valley Pass. (SL) – 244km

Itarsi: 20:55
Chhindwara : 04:30

14th August (Tue)
—————-
22NNJ (SL) – 147km

Chhindwara : 08:20
Nagpur : 15:30

15th August (Wed)
————
7606 Nandigram Exp (SL) – 933km

Nagpur : 06:00
Manmad : 00:20

16th August (Thu)
————
1032 Gyan Ganga Exp (SL) – 312km (PNR: 2601929243)

Manmad : 01:35

Pune : 08:00

6339 CSTM-NCJ Exp (2A) – 1736km

Pune : 16:00

Nagercoil : 03:00

18th August (Sat)
————
2633 MS-CAPE Exp (GS) – 15km
Nagercoil : 06:10
Kanniyakumari : 06:30

————————
Grand Total KMs – 5662

We’re looking forward to the Lassi in Jammu and Pedas in Mathura. The kebabs of Lucknow and the Oranges of Mathura. Biryani at Daund and Vadai in TN. And if anyone knows of any seedy bar enroute where we could down a cold beer….. do let us know. It may help plan the next trip.