Thrissur to Kannur by Intercity Express

The requirement was simple - we (I & TW) had to travel from Thrissur to Kannur to attend a wedding. I initially looked at buses - all of them were overnight journeys, but they had awful departure timings from Thrissur. Trains had even worse timings. I had to take the day train - like always. There were 5 trains with sitting accommodation - and I opted for the first train of the day, the 16305 Ernakulam Kannur Intercity Express. Our tickets were waitlisted at the time of booking. In the run-up to the journey, a lot of this happened - the deluge washed away a part of the permanent way. The railways worked on a war-foot basis to repair the damage. In the mean time, the ticket moved down from waitlist to confirmed. IRCTC sent me a message as soon as the ticket got confirmed. I received another message when the chart was prepared - this new message had the seat numbers as well.

August 26, 2018:
We started from home around 0620hrs - after a fairly heavy breakfast, with a very heavy heart. We had targeted a KSRTC bus, that should pass by my place by about 0630hrs - there was no sign of this bus, but a private bus operated by MS Menon Transports came in. A veteran operator, I am quite a fan of these people as well - unlike the regular private buses on this route, this one had good leg room and the crew were very friendly as well. The bus dropped us at Thrissur by around 0735hrs - giving us ample time to walk down to the railway station. We just did that - there was no hurry. We entered the station through the main entrance, since we had no idea of the coach position - the chart at the entrance informed that our coach would be the 15th in the 19 coach formation.

We lugged our bags to Platform 2, and started our long wait for the train. TW picked up some biscuits from a stall on the platform. We were lucky to find some place to rest as well. Trains were mostly running late, and our train was late as well. They had announced a 15 minutes delay to our train on the PA system as well. Ahead of our train was Guruvayur passenger - which came in with a WAP4 in charge. In the meantime, the Kerala Express to Trivandrum also came in. Our train came in at 0830hrs, with Erode's WDM3D #14147 doing the honours. Our coach came in perfectly where we were waiting, as well! Our halt was short - so we had to rush with boarding. We got moving at 0833hrs from Thrissur.
WDM3D #14147 of Erode arriving at Thrissur with my train...

We were traveling in coach #C1 - a 1999 ICF built coach (#99151) based at Trivandrum. The rake (coach consist) is based at Trivandrum, and is shared between three trains. The coach seemed quite well kept - except the flat wheel, which set the background music for our travel. Meanwhile, the train was making quick progress towards Kannur. We had to overtake a freighter that was parked on the mainline at Wadakkanchery. The train slowed down after Vallatol Nagar - Bharathapuzha was full, and was a sight to behold. We pulled in to Shoranur at 0918hrs. I wanted something to snack on, but surprisingly no vendors came to our coach. There were none outside, either. We got moving at 0923hrs - 28 minutes behind schedule.

We had a slow run after Shoranur - slowing down at quite a lot of places due to engineering restrictions. After quite a bit of crawling, we got to our next stop - Kuttipuram at 0959, and got moving soon. We had a series of stops after this - Tirur (1015), Tanur (1025), Parappanangadi (1034) - all one minute halts. Although the halts were only a minute each, the train loses no less than 10-15 minutes due to the time lost in entering and exiting the loop line, and the loss of momentum. We halted at Kallayi for a while, to cross the Trivandrum bound Netravati Express - its a double line section, but we had to wait since Netravati had just vacated the platform for us! We pulled into Kozhikode (Calicut) station at 1108hrs. I was quite hungry by now, and badly wanted some snack - there were no vendors around our coach even now. After quite a while, a vendor turned up - who had fritters. I picked up a pack of four and returned to my seat. We got moving from Kozhikode at 1116hrs.

The run ahead was quite uneventful again - a series of one minute halts followed - Vadakara (1153hrs), Mahe (1207hrs) and Thalassery (1219hrs). We kept crossing trains frequently - I did not notice any of them. The run was quite fast. We had to wait for a while at Kannur outer - we finally got to Kannur at 1248hrs (8 minutes behind schedule). Quite astonishingly, they took the train on to Platform 2, instead of platform 1 - this meant a train full of passengers had to vacate through two Foot-over-bridges. Admitting the train on the first platform would've been convenient to all the passengers.

Journey in a Nutshell:Train Number: 16305 Ernakulam Jn. - Kannur 'Intercity' Express
Loco link: Erode WDM3D #14147
Coach: C1, WGACCZ #99151 built by ICF, Chennai. Based at Trivandrum. 

Ratings:Punctuality: 9.5/10 (Acceptable delays)
Cleanliness: 10/10 (Very clean!)
Catering: 2/10 - no food vendors even being a day train. Neither did the train have a pantry car, nor did they have a catering service.
Overall: 9/10

A no-nonsense journey from Point-A to Point-B. Lack of catering is really bad, especially for a day train. The coach was clean, and cooling was perfect. Overall - a good journey. 

Comments

rahulvijayev said…
Just wondering why you were held at Kallayi as north bound trains are admitted to PF4 and south bound trains to PF1 normally!
C.A.Raghu Ram said…
In kannur station pf 1 is for Mangalore bound trains and pf3 for Shornur bound trains

Halting trains are normally parked in pf2

Also there is a bay line for Kannur cbe passenger