Metric sojurn in the land of Awadh Part 1

The recent adventures of Mohan Bhuyan and Bharat Vohra came to my mind as my 2107 LTT-LKO superfast pulled into Lucknow on a sultry and humid July afternoon. Made my way towards the eponymous Lucknow Charbagh structure and took an auto to Indiranagar C block where I was met by Mr Samar Hussain(ZRUCC, LKO/NR) who took me to the nearby Dilkusha cabin which overlooks the lines to places like Allahabad, Varanasi, Faizabad, Rae Bareilly etc. After spending the evening there we headed to the Tundey Kababi restaurant in Ameenabad where we had an excellent Beef kabab for a measly Rs20/- Samar was kind enough to drop me to the nearby Lucknow City railway station from where I was supposed to catch the 5307 Nainital Exp to Bhojipura.

At about 20:45, a dark blue colored YDM4 loco pulled in with the Nainital Exp. I was booked in the First class in which Cabin A was allotted in which an upper berth was assigned to me, much to my disappointment. Anyways, the FC coach was just divine on the inside. Each cabin had 3 windows and large berths. The sight took me back in time and I felt like I was on a long metre gauge journey on a train in the 1990's. We pulled out of Lucknow City station and maintained a decent pace till Daliganj Jn from where the BG line running parallel to us bifurcates and heads towards Badshahnagar and then on to Burhwal Jn. Once out of Daliganj we were doing a good clip and I opened up all the windows and shooed away the RPF constables since the slick weather was starting to make me restless. Meanwhile, the Lucknow-Sitapur highway ran constantly parallel to us. The entire route has color light signalling but still has the old Nielle's ball token system which is given to the driver with the help of a 'mashaal' lit on the side of the track next to which a 'khalasi' stands on a raised platform with the token.

It was getting late and I had to rise early the next morning, so I called it a day and hit the berth. Thanks to the movable heads of the ceiling mounted fans I was able to get some good sleep and also due to the soft spongy and clean berths. Roused early next day at around 4:35 to find ourselves entering Bhojipura Jn. Here the nainital exp has a reversal so that he can proceed towards Lalkuan. Bhojipura is by far a typical MG junction with 3 platforms and a lone yet useless foot over bridge. At the north end of the station, 2 lines proceed to Lalkuan and the other towards Pilibhit while on the south end a lone MG single proceeds further onto Izzatnagar, Bareilly and Kasganj.

My onward connection to Izzatnagar was the Gokul Exp from Gonda which happened to be 2 hours late. Went to the ticket office and purchased a ticket to Izzatnagar as dawn broke over the horizon at 5:10am. The sea of sleeping bodies slowly started to rise while the monkeys at the station took advantage of the morning time to run amock around the station and also perform the occasional moments of love. As time passes by people start to gather for the morning departures out of Bhojipura while a bovine gives me company on a bench that I am perched on. The 'facilities' at the station tempt me to do my morning rituals there but I would rather prefer to do my morning ablutions in the confines of a train since the on-board facilities are comparatively cleaner than a place used by multiple belly sporting uncles in their chaddi's waiting in line with small plastic buckets.

Thats all for this part people....To be continued....