[binaiks]

Originally Posted by unk9ja

Saw 3 Leyland Luxuria buses inside the Sharma garage on Hosur road near Siddapura signal yesterday. The registration numbers were being painted on them starting with NL.

That Garage is not of Sharma. It is "NAS Garage" - NAS/Neelu is an operator who leases out buses to various operators. They own a huge fleet of trucks as well. They own a few Luxura Sleepers now. Their first two buses operate on the Bangalore-Chennai route (for Shama Sardar). They recently bought two more, which operate in the Bangalore-Hyderabad route. This time, they are operating in their own brand "Neelu Travels".

[Autokrat]

Originally Posted by binaiks

That Garage is not of Sharma. It is "NAS Garage" - NAS/Neelu is an operator who leases out buses to various operators. They own a huge fleet of trucks as well. They own a few Luxura Sleepers now. Their first two buses operate on the Bangalore-Chennai route (for Shama Sardar). They recently bought two more, which operate in the Bangalore-Hyderabad route. This time, they are operating in their own brand "Neelu Travels".

Understand 2 are operated by Sharma in Bangalore - Mumbai route as a sleeper bus.

[binaiks]

Originally Posted by Autokrat

Understand 2 are operated by Sharma in Bangalore - Mumbai route as a sleeper bus.

Nope. Those two are owned by Sharma themselves. Sharma has taken two Volvo B9Rs on lease from NAS/Neelu. Other Sharma "branded" buses are owned by them. The buses which have a "Pari" written above the windshield are their own vehicles. NAS/Neelu buses would have "Neelu" written on top, and "NAS" near the number plate.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by unk9ja

Yeah one with orange decals has been regularly running from this garage. See it going into/ coming out most of days when I go/ return from work. No idea about the Kesineni service though

Deep Orange and Pale white are the pairs and running in Bangalore - Chennai route.

Originally Posted by Autokrat

Understand 2 are operated by Sharma in Bangalore - Mumbai route as a sleeper bus.

Yes, they are running in Bangalore - Mumbai route and are owned by Sharma.

Originally Posted by binaiks

Nope. Those two are owned by Sharma themselves. Sharma has taken two Volvo B9Rs on lease from NAS/Neelu. Other Sharma "branded" buses are owned by them. The buses which have a "Pari" written above the windshield are their own vehicles. NAS/Neelu buses would have "Neelu" written on top, and "NAS" near the number plate.

Sharma has operated several buses owned by NAS including one of first Mercedes Benz buses in India.

Originally Posted by binaiks

They recently bought two more, which operate in the Bangalore-Hyderabad route. This time, they are operating in their own brand "Neelu Travels".

Apart from new buses in Bangalore - Hyderabad route one more pair is likely to

get operated in Bangalore - Cochin route.

Image copyright to owners

[Autokrat]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Apart from new buses in Bangalore - Hyderabad route one more pair is likely to get operated in Bangalore - Cochin route.

In red bus "Neelu Travels" appear only in Hyd - Blr route whereas fo Blr hyd route there is a "Deccan Travels" showing a Luxura A/C sleeper listed.

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by Autokrat

In red bus "Neelu Travels" appear only in Hyd - Blr route whereas fo Blr hyd route there is a "Deccan Travels" showing a Luxura A/C sleeper listed.

You are right. The buses are listed separately under Neelu and Deccan travels for each route, but are owned by NAS.

[ranjithrnath]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Deep Orange and Pale white are the pairs and running in Bangalore - Chennai route.

Apart from new buses in Bangalore - Hyderabad route one more pair is likely to get operated in Bangalore - Cochin route.

Image copyright to owners

Found these Azad built Leyland Luxura buses in ATLAS TRAVELS website
http://www.atlastravels.in/gallery

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by ranjithrnath

Found these Azad built Leyland Luxura buses in ATLAS TRAVELS website
http://www.atlastravels.in/gallery

The third and fourth pics are actually the first and second ones themselves but edited to change the colour of the bus.

[Ashley2]

Crazy Guys. Almost all the images are photo shopped. Not sure whether this is a travel agency or they are running any buses

Originally Posted by silversteed

The third and fourth pics are actually the first and second ones themselves but edited to change the colour of the bus.

Even in first two images they have edited by adding their names.

[ranjithrnath]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

Crazy Guys. Almost all the images are photo shopped. Not sure whether this is a travel agency or they are running any buses
Even in first two images they have edited by adding their names.

Both the green and blue buses looks "photo-shopped"

[binaiks]

Originally Posted by ranjithrnath

Both the green and blue buses looks "photo-shopped"

In fact, its all the same bus, photoshopped to four different colours, and the ATLAS name added. ATLAS is the agent who handles all Sharma services to/from Kerala. In fact, ATLAS owns a few buses it owns with the "Sharma" name.

A Short review of my Bangalore-Kodungallur trip by (Suresh) Kallada Tours & Travels Volvo B9R, on February 15, 2014. The bus was their Bangalore-Ernakulam via Mysore, Kozhikode service (B20).

A small prelude: A trip by the Bangalore,Mysore-Ernakulam B9R was long long overdue. This is one of their oldest routes - they used to run this service during their B7R days as well - in fact, as early as in 2005. In 2008, I had a confirmed ticket in the bus from Bangalore to Kodungallur as well - but could not do the journey since I did not get any return tickets and I eventually postponed the trip to a later date. The service was cancelled after the night traffic restriction came in force between Gundlupet and Muthanga (Forest road closes at 9pm and re-opens only at 6AM). Kallada re-introduced the route with B9Rs sometime in the later half of 2012. This time, the bus was routed via Mysore-Hunsur-Gonikoppa-Kutta-Mananthavady-Kalpetta-Kozhikode, instead of going via Gundlupet-S.Bathery-Kalpetta. This bus departs at 8.15pm from Madiwala, and takes a good 13 hours to reach Kodungallur - a distance of about 560-odd kms, through about 85% 2-lane roads.

S.Kallada Tours and Travels has now started this ugly habit of blocking all the seats for their services departing Bangalore on Fridays - the seats can now be booked only through their offices - or through phone. I booked my ticket through their office in Madiwala, and had chosen their new "Check post" office as my boarding point. It was one back-breaking ride from home to the office by an auto - the fella took the rick through all inexistent roads at breakneck speeds.

Like every S.Kallada journey of mine, the jynx remained this time too - It was a red coloured bus. I always get the red (or its variant) shades every time I take Kallada (either of the Kalladas). The bus was KA-01-AB-1361 - my third journey in the same bus, and second journey in the same seat! D1 was my seat this time. The bus had about 2.25 lakh kms on the odo (it was only 1.1 lakh during my last journey, in end of July 2012).

Timeline of the trip:
Kallada 1361 (2.25l)
Madiwala Check post office 1953/2018
Kalasipalya 2049/2108/2117
Channapatna 2242/2300 (Dinner)
Kutta Forest check post 0245/0314 (forced to wait due to some issue with the officer there)
Kattikulam Kerala RTO CP 0340
Kalpetta 0424/0426
Kozhikode bypass (Malaparamba) 0605
Kozhikode Mofussil BS 0611/0616
Kozhikode Kallada office (MM Ali Road) 0618/0625
Chelari 0654
Kuttipuram 0749
Kunnamkulam 0820 pass
Guruvayur 0843 pass
Kodungallur 0931

End-to-end journey took 13h17m - for a distance of about 567kms - of which only the first 140kms or so is two-laned.

We lost a lot of time at Kalasipalya - We reached there at 2049hrs, but traffic cops did not allow the bus to enter Albert Victor Road (where all the private operators have their office), so had to take a long round and came back at 2108hrs, when we were allowed to enter the road.

We lost about 30 minutes waiting at Kutta Forest Check post - the officer there had some funny demands, and the crew were not in a position to fulfill them - so the bus was detained for about 30 minutes at the first checkpost. After the crew made some assurances, the bus was allowed to proceed, but again stopped at the second check post for some 10 minutes. We lost 5 minutes at Kattikulam Kerala RTO Check post.

Despite all this, the bus covered around 57kms from Kutta to Kalpetta (completely two laned, narrow pothole ridden roads) in about 70 minutes (including the waiting at the 2nd CP and Kerala RTO post). The roads are so narrow that one vehicle has to compulsorily stop or pull out of the road to allow the other to cross.

Both the drivers were excellent - managed to sleep undisturbed from Channapatna till Hunsur (I woke up when the bus hit a rough patch - Kuthiran would be ashamed if compared with that road).

Bus had 48/48 load from Kalasipalya. 36 seats to Kozhikode, 1 to Kottakkal, 1 to Kuttipuram, 1 to Thriprayar, 1 to Kodungallur (yours truly) and 1 to Ernakulam. The remaining seats were to Kalpetta, Thamarassery and Kunnamangalam (did not count how many got off at these places). It was just 5 passengers when we left from Kozhikode!!

No movie was played - they played some christian devotional songs in the night (between Madiwala and Kengeri) and also in the morning (after Kottakkal). Day time driving was really good - 3hrs from Kozhikode to Kodungallur was commendable (3hrs is what one would normally take when driving ones' car during these hours of the day).

The bus has poor loads after Kozhikode - I think it is appropriate to cut the service at Kozhikode, and may be return as a day trip. May be they get some Kozhikode-Ernakulam seats on Weekdays.

Overall, I liked the journey - unlikely to repeat it though. Its a good option for people looking for overnight Bangalore-Kozhikode runs. It is the only Volvo service in the route other than KaSRTC.

[S5157]

KaSRTC has come up with some discount offers. I recieved the below information through email from KaSRTC.

[TKMCE]

THe 10% discount on Tue- Thu is a fantastic move... And restricting it to advance bookings means that now many people wll switch over to KaSRTC from private operators on these days.

[ranjitp1]

For the benefit of people in here,the APSRTC Online booking website would be down from Feb 19th 12am to Feb20th 12am for some maintenance.

[ranjitp1]

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/21/red...-them-special/