[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by LPT2625

@coolclouds: I hope you haven't confused SRS with SRM. The SRS website shows only ONE service to Trivandrum.

Sorry, my bad. What I mean was SRM
Generally, 11 hrs is sufficient for a non stop Volvo multi axle service to Tvm

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

Hope this is the right place for this query.
(I need to attend a friend's wedding at Udupi.)

Is there any AC sleeper (Volvo preferred) service between Pune and Udupi?
How are the road conditions from Belgaum to Udupi?

I don't want to break my back sitting in a bus for 14 hours -one way- journey since I have a hectic schedule.

There are no A/c sleeper buses on the Mumbai-Mangalore stretch at all.

For a brief while (guess late '05), there was indeed a Canara Pinto Volvo sleeper and a 1*2 Volvo but that was there for hardly a few months.

A good bet is the Volvo. Now, note a few things. There are many services between Mumbai-Pune-Udupi-Mangalore.

Private operators generally have services from Mumbai and do NOT enter Pune. You'll have to board the bus either at Katraj or Hotel Anand.

Only KSRTC has services originating from Pune (Swargate) so those will be convenient.

Now, if you don't want Volvo buses, you can take the trains. Since the Poorna Express won't work for you, you can think of

- Matsyagandha
- Netravati
- Mangala etc.

These originate at LTT/Panvel.

You can chose depending on your convenience.

[TKMCE]

Neeta has a couple of Volvos coming from BOM to Mangalore via Pune. Only advantage unlike VRL and most others from BOM is that they have a boarding point at Hinjewadi Bridge. Convenient if you live in Aundh/Hinjewadi side. I would recommend if you go with Neeta to take the 6 PM bus from Pune as their next departure at 7.15 gets caught in Mumbai rush our traffic (their Mangalore buses start from Mira Road) and so wll generally reach Pune around 8 PM or later.

Talking about Neeta on BOM-Pune there is a lot critcism by people in another thread here about their services. I have used them about 5 -6 times in the last few months and find them quite good. It is almost like a hop on hop off service now and sometimes even you get Mercs or the Volvo multi axles on the route (some older Volvos are also there).

I board from the western suburbs and find them convenient since their Pune buses start from Borivili. Also since I have to get off in the Aundh area, I can get down at Hinjewadi, so that gives me a lot of options irrespective of the final destination of the bus (Some of them go to Kothrud)

Mostly the BOM Pune buses run non stop (no stop at Lonvala) and in their early morning departures from Andheri to Hinjewadi takes as less as 2 1/2 hours. Return services inevitably stop at Lonavla and even then you can reach in 3 to 3 1/2 hours. No need of reserving tickets, even on Friday evenings I was able to get tickets for 300 from their office. Just get a ticket, wait for the next bus whch comes, and the conductor will give you an available seat number.

Hassle free and cheap @300 for a Fri evening dep especially.

For those in the western suburbs , MSRTC Shivneri is not an option as getting to Dadar is a waste of time and money and while there are Borivali services, they are not frequent - about one an hour. They also cost 380-400 and inevitably take a stop on both directions. The MSRTC Pune Thane frequency is much better.

[foby.sebastian]

any clue about the buses starting from Cochin/Thrissur/Ponnani to Mumbai , Akbar/Benzy Travels. Any one traveled in it ? what about the cost and time ? How about the service ? Do they have any Volvo or Merc I have only seen their Tata / Leyland buses , perhaps registered at MH or Kerala

[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by foby.sebastian

any clue about the buses starting from Cochin/Thrissur/Ponnani to Mumbai , Akbar/Benzy Travels. Any one traveled in it ? what about the cost and time ? How about the service ? Do they have any Volvo or Merc I have only seen their Tata / Leyland buses , perhaps registered at MH or Kerala

I hope Akbar travels Cochin-Mumbai service stopped long back

[deepclutch]

Originally Posted by foby.sebastian

any clue about the buses starting from Cochin/Thrissur/Ponnani to Mumbai , Akbar/Benzy Travels. Any one traveled in it ? what about the cost and time ? How about the service ? Do they have any Volvo or Merc I have only seen their Tata / Leyland buses , perhaps registered at MH or Kerala

I don't think there are any more services from Cochin to Bombay through Mangalore Route? there are Goa services from Paulo travels from Ernakulam.

By Road, the option may be to reach Bangalore and get a connection Bus to Bombay.

[coolclouds]

Since Konkan railway is operational, buses can not match timings/cost anywhere near train hence not a profitable route.

[TKMCE]

The Kochi Mumbai bus services have stopped long back. These services were popular in the 1980s and early 1990s due to the following reasons.

1 No Konkan railway then- Indian railways route map from Trivandrum and Kochi to Mumbai was a mini South India darshan - Trivandrum -Ernakulam-Palghat-Coimbatore- Salem - Katpadi-Renigunta- Cuddappah-Gooty-Raichur-Gulbarga-Wadi-Solapur-Pune-Mumbai (The same route still followed by Kanyakumari Mumbai express but with a detour via Tirupati). The journey 30 years back used to take 44 hours, With just one 2 II AC and about 12 sleeper coaches, tickets in peak holiday times were next to impossible to get and if you managed to get one then the achievement was something similar to winning an olympic medal. In the early 1980s IR was not computerised and there was no Tatkal also. So if you had to travel in the last minute, flying (ridiculously expensive - only airline in domestic routes was Indian Airlines) or the bus were the only options. Interestingly since no Konkan railway, hence there were 1 or 2 "slip"coaches attached to the Trivandrum Mumbai express (train did not start from Kanyakumari then) which was attached from Mangalore with some other train and then linked at Palghat on to the Mumbai train. So Mangaloreans if they wanted to enjoy IR to Mumbai then had to travel about 8 hours south first!!

2 The Middle East boom had just started. By the late 1970s Air India had started a few flights to the gulf from Trivandrum. However foreign airlines were not allowed in till the late 1980s (Srilankan and Gulf Air were the first in). Kozhikode did not have an airport then (atleast not in its present form and location - there was a small airstrip near the town where Hindu used to ferry its newspapers in a small a/c) and Kochi airport was at the Nsval air station - no international flights and no night flights either. As a result most of the travel to the gulf were either from Trivandrum or from Mumbai adding to the further demand for bus services.

As a kid I used to do the Jayanthi Janatha run (the current Trivandrum Mumbai train) every year. I guess those experiences (my family couldnt afford II AC tickets) have made me keep away from train travel ever since and once I got old enough to travel alone I have stuck to buses and now occassionally flights.

Akbar had bus services from Kochi via Mangalore to Mumbai. There were a lot of operators operarting services via Bangalore (no Volvos then). I used to take Sharma Transports . They had a bus leaving at 6.30 PM then from their office (which still remains at Grand hotel) and the bus used to reach around 6.30 /7 at Kalasipalayam. There was no one getting off at Madiwala. Most of the crowd was travelling to Mumbai and the connecting bus left Bangalore at 8.30 AM. If the Kerala bus got delayed, the onward Mumbai bus would wait. No GQ and no Volvos, so the Bangalore Mumbai travel time was around 22 hours. I used to get off at Pune (Hotel Natraj at Swargate- no express way or even he bye pass then) around 3-4 Am.

Other options via BLR were through Indira Travels, SB Travels and NS-RPD (all these started from Ensign agencies at Jos Junction). However Sharma was always reliable then so I never had to shift to another operator.

The demand for the Trivandrum Mumbai flights were so much that Kerala SRTC had two express busses starting from the airport at around 3 PM, one via Alleppy to Ernakulam and one to Kottayam and Moovatupuzha. These buses connected with the Mumbai Trivandrum Indain Airlines flight. To connect with the Air India flights which used arrive early morning from the Gulf, they had buses to Kannur and Ponnani at & AM from the airport.

[gold class]

KPN NEW ROUTE LAUNCH-Multi Axle Volvo
Marthandam-Hyderabad
Pondichery-Hyderabad
Coimbatore-Bangalore 07:30 AM

[gold class]

Addition To COK -BOM Bus service.

I still remember my uncle used to say,Once all the seats in the bus are filled up ,then comes up VVIP seats called as manorama seat,mathrubhumi or express seat.It means you can choose any of these news papers and make yourself comfortable in the gang way.
The other big operator you missed out was CANARA PINTO. They had about 3-4 services from TCR-CLT belt running to MUMBAI daily.

[polopm]

Originally Posted by gold class

KPN NEW ROUTE LAUNCH-Multi Axle Volvo
Marthandam-Hyderabad
Pondichery-Hyderabad
Coimbatore-Bangalore 07:30 AM

Mind boggling considering the distance ( Marthandam-Hyderabad)..
I remember those days when the long distance set by TTC (now SETC, Tamilnadu) was from Chennai to Kollur Mugambika and buses from Mumbai to Bangalore (private/govt ??).

For knowledge's sake , can someone tell me what is the longest distance covered by buses these days (regular routes) ??

Cheers !

[coolclouds]

Originally Posted by polopm

For knowledge's sake , can someone tell me what is the longest distance covered by buses these days (regular routes) ??

Cheers !

It should be Bangalore-Ahmedabad (VRL) and Trivandrum-Hyderabad (Kesineni)

[venki.bala]

Originally Posted by gold class

KPN NEW ROUTE LAUNCH-Multi Axle Volvo
Marthandam-Hyderabad
Pondichery-Hyderabad
Coimbatore-Bangalore 07:30 AM

It looks like KPN is simply trying the same routes that Kesineni introduces. Last month Kesinenin introduced Trivandrum - HYD and Chidambaram - HYD. My colleague who travels to coimbatore regularly through kesineni says that he prefers Kesinneni to KPN as the former maintains timing better than KPN.

[f1fan]

Originally Posted by gold class

Addition To COK -BOM Bus service.

I still remember my uncle used to say,Once all the seats in the bus are filled up ,then comes up VVIP seats called as manorama seat,mathrubhumi or express seat.It means you can choose any of these news papers and make yourself comfortable in the gang way.
The other big operator you missed out was CANARA PINTO. They had about 3-4 services from TCR-CLT belt running to MUMBAI daily.

Purely Newspapers were actually the last available seat option.
Once all the normal seats were filled up, next came cabin seats. Those times, the door to the coach was like the ones that we see on current local buses ( i.e. not at the start on the left side but a little deeper inside on that side) and hence there was 3-4 seats available in the cabin ( one would have to seat sideways the whole journey). Post cabin was the dabba seats (if you guys recollect, biscuits used to come in metal boxes) and those empty rectangular boxes were used as seats.
Last came the newspaper seats.

[TKMCE]

Canara Pinto I guess used to go via IXE. Sharma, Indira, SB, NS-RPD all used to go vis BLR . I used to do the TRV-Poona trip and TRV EKM was on some KeSRTC exp (Those days TRV BLR buses private buses had not started).

I remember the TTC buses. THeir longest routes at that time were Chennai Kollur via Bangalore, Mangalore, Chennai Hyderabad (1 service) and Chennai Trivandrum which they had many a day. Infact the Chennai Trivandrum wa a route even before TTC days, originally it wa a Pallavan route before TTC was set up and if my memory is correct this route was started in the mid 1970s or even earlier. In early 1980s the TTC terminus at Parrys bus stand was extremely well organised.