As big as the river itself. Review on Godavari Express

Do you know that every railway zone and division has at least one ‘prestige train’ to run and maintain? These are the trains that the authorities pamper, by providing it the best platforms and the newest and best coaches, tend to its cleanliness, maintain strict timeliness in their run and always have special counters for reserving on them? Forget the Rajdhanis, Shatabdis, Swarna-Jayanthis and the Palaces-On-Wheels. Those are the railway ministry’s prestige crates. Nor am I talking about the long-runners like the Tamil Nadu Exp, the Punjab mail or the Himsagar that are shared by more than two zones, remaining just trains without character. The ones with character are the middle-distance runners like the Deccan Queen, Brindavan Express and the Taj Express. Here I am, to introduce you to one such prestige carrier: the 7007/7008 Godavari Express.

This one runs daily between Visakhapatnam Junction and Hyderabad Deccan. It runs halfway across the Andhra coast before it diverts inwards at Vijaywada Junction into the Telangana region. Actually it should be the other way around. HYD-VSK, because, it is one of the prestige trains of the South Central Railway and runs almost entirely in its territory. It is by far the most popular way to travel between both the cities and has remained so ever since its inception in the 70s.

Here is why it remains popular:

It is one way to finish your work in either cities and catch a good sleep before you land in the other city and resume your duties. This train scored big on its timings. It covers 600Km of distance between 4.00pm-5.00am(VSK-HYD respectively) and 5.00pm-6.00am (HYD-VSK respectively) connecting the busy and methodical people of two cities who value time a lot. The timings were changed on popular opinion to 6.50pm-7.00am(both places) because the auto fares are high at Hyderabad at 5.00 am!

It runs a wait-list of 700 during peak season (school vacations) and 100 on other days. “Travel by the Godavari or suffer in the Visakha (Bhubaneswar-Secunderabad Visakha Express)”, they say. The train is 24 coaches long with the Sleeper class coaches running upto an ominous S13. Add to it six AC coaches, 3 Ac III tiers, two AC Sleepers (2-tier) and one AC-First Class. There are 4 general coaches and a mail-coach. Still the wait-list runs astronomically high. The coaches are always new and lit brightly. The toilets always clean, bright and odor-free and the berths dust free. The train is pulled by an efficient WAP-4 electric loco that replaced the smoke bombs of the twin WDM2 diesels that pulled it in the pre-electrical traction era.

This is THE train of the coastal Andhra Pradesh. It carries, in itself, the soul of coastal AP. It has been called the MLA Train. Politicians and parliamentarians use it. The 7007/7008 is an invariable part of a politician’s life here and he/she cannot dispense it. It is therefore not uncommon to come across a seasoned neta sharing berths with you, sharing his dinner or wily anecdotes off his political life as you wear off the evening in the train. There are the tinsel stars of Hyderabad, the government officials of Rajamundhry, the oil merchants of Kakinada, the software wannabes of Vizag or the humble landowners of West Godavari all travelling together and sharing bits of their life. This train stops at most of the stations en route, for it is the chief link for the most populous region of South India with the state capital. Every body here has done the Godavari express at least once and everybody love to.

The train precedes all the others in importance, even the mighty and sprightly Coromandel Express that thunders down to Chennai Central in a whoosh of wind. In fact so prestigious and important this train was with the masses that the South Central Railway went about the painstaking and costly task of increasing the length of the platforms of every station where 7007 stopped so that all of its 24 coaches are accommodated! It is not uncommon to see signposts placed alongside the tracks saying “Godavari Express Engine To Stop Here”.

The AP State Road Transport Corporation runs buses from remote villages along the coast to the nearest railhead so that the folks may catch the Godavari Express. Chain pulling is severely frowned upon in the Godavari and people actually get punished! Bribing the TTE is big time business, but as futile. It is simply difficult to get a berth on this much-loved train. It starts on time, arrives on time and delivers a hope each time it pulls up into its terminal station.

The river Godavari is big and wide in its flow through coastal Andhra Pradesh; a life giver, a preserver and a heritage. So is the 7007/7008 Godavari Express. If you ever need to travel between Hyderabad and Vizag, do the Godavari Express; wait-list notwithstanding. Otherwise, suffer the Visakha!