[vivek95]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

I continued enjoying this drive, although it quickly gets repetitive and might be a bit boring too:

[*]For the above reason, best to do this drive non-stop without any fueling on the way or any other stops. One can cover this distance in ridiculously quick time and the driving rhythm is something you can never experience on any other road in India. Best to enjoy that !

Nice Thanks Dr. AD for this interesting post !! What's abnormal for the world is perfectly normal for us BHPians. Take a bow for driving down all the way from Bangalore just for the sake of this one heck of an awesome Expressway.

You are absolutely spot on about the repetitiveness of Samruddhi Mahamarg, it does get boring indeed. I have decided to take Samruddhi again only if there is a genuine need. In contrast, despite umpteen casual drives on Mumbai-- Pune Expressway, I never get bored to visit it again and again. Surely I am looking forward to drive on Phase 2 of Samruddhi Mahamarg i. e Mumbai to Shirdi , given it's highly scenic location amidst Sahyadris / Western Ghats. But done with the super straight nature of phase 1 Nagpur to Shirdi for now.

Those who have already tried Samruddhi Mahamarg in daylight should next plan for an all night drive. Trust me, it's exhilarating. The well designed well lit interchanges ,exit lanes and the reflectors add to the glittering experience. The noise from the cement surface becomes very soothing and melodious at night when you are comfortably cruising at 120 kmph for 4-5 hours -- the rhythm you are talking about !!

I highly recommend a night drive on this Expressway for an ethereal driving experience. The infrastructure, the wow factor and all the bling is simply unparalleled.

At Shirdi interchange during my drive

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by JoshMachine

So you drove from Bangalore to Nagpur for 1100 km on a day, to experience what 450 km of Nagpur to Aurangabad feels like on the Samruddhi expressway the next day
(the forum doesn't permit more than 2 per post)

How I wish I was there in that passenger seat, right from B'lore that is!

Thank you very much! In fact, I continued my random wanderings after finishing my business meetings at Aurangabad. Instead of driving back straight to Bangalore, I drove to Pune, and then to Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary (where I got a boat for myself in the early morning hours just before the sunrise, and experienced spectacular sights at Bhigwan at sunrise), and then via Solapur, drove to Hampi. Spent an evening watching sunset in Hampi - my favorite activity that I have done countless times recently. And then I drove back to Bangalore.

This ended up being a 2900km road trip and I ended up driving across almost the entire width of Maharashtra.

Originally Posted by vivek95

Nice Thanks Dr. AD for this interesting post !! What's abnormal for the world is perfectly normal for us BHPians. Take a bow for driving down all the way from Bangalore just for the sake of this one heck of an awesome Expressway.

Thank you very much!

Those who have already tried Samruddhi Mahamarg in daylight should next plan for an all night drive.

I highly recommend a night drive on this Expressway for an ethereal driving experience. The infrastructure, the wow factor and all the bling is simply unparalleled.

Great point, and thanks for suggesting this! This was exactly on my mind for my next drive. I am sure to do a night drive there next. I used to enjoy night drives in the US because of such good infrastructure. However, in India, the night drives suddenly became way too risky (due to many reasons including bad roads and absolute lack of traffic safety on the road). But this Samruddhi Mahamarg, at least in its design, is as safe as any other road in the world. This is one place where we could do a safe night drive and enjoy it too.

My mind is already running over the agendas for upcoming drives to see where I could fit in a night drive on Samruddhi :-)

[Trojan]

So this time around we decided to take our Swift for our drive from Pune to Panna Tiger Reserve in the second week of December and returned in the 2nd week of January.

The Samruddhi Expressway has made mince meat of distances and long distance travel has never looked so damn easy ever.

Here is a summary of our return travel, in which we covered 1280kms in 18hrs, of which 1000kms were dished out in only 12hrs!!!

Departure from Camp at Panna Tiger Reserve: 6am
Arrival at home in Pune: 1am
Total KMs: 1280
Total Time: 18hrs


We left from our camp at 6am and after traversing the 20kms of forest trail, finally hit the highway at 7am.

Once we were out in the open plateau, fog hit us bad and we had to take a good 45mins break coupled with Breakfast to wait it out. Honestly speaking, we were skeptical on what time we would reach Aurangabad and had planned to stay back there and continue onward to Pune only the next day... but...

The Panna - Amanganj - Pawai - Katni route has been under lane widening for quite some time and it is finally completed - not entirely but 90% and though there is still plenty of work left (dividers, markers etc.) it is still great tarmac and fairly wide too.

The Swift helped putting the milestones behind us quickly and we found ourselves crossing Jabalpur at 940am
- Reached Nagpur at 3pm
- Entered Samruddhi at 4pm
- Aurangabad at 715pm

This was totally unexpected and that meant that we could actually head home straight instead of staying back.

https://youtu.be/u5Cwr6R0ijs

Now you don’t need a big car to cover/travel long distances on this route, any car would do.
For residents of Mumbai - Pune, using the Samruddhi Expressway to travel to the forests of Madhya Pradesh has just become so so easy and convenient and did I mention F A S T


Cheers,

[anirudh_85]

Originally Posted by JoshMachine

So you drove from Bangalore to Nagpur for 1100 km on a day, to experience what 450 km of Nagpur to Aurangabad feels like on the Samruddhi expressway the next day

Petition to make this the dictionary definition of a TBHP-ian
But on a serious note, extremely well written short travelogue and I hope I get to experience this highway sooner rather later.

[astrodex]

Great post, thank you for sharing it. It is heartening to see so many expressways mushrooming in India that are sometimes even better than the ones you see in West. It is high time we invested in such infrastructure! Looking forward to see such majestic routes open up in other areas also. During my recent drive down from Goa to Cochin I had seen lot of road construction going on, especially in Kerala. Hoping to see such grand roads all across the country!

[callmeneo]

Got a chance to drive on the expressway when traversing to Nagpur from Hubli.

The alternate route to Nagpur was 90 kms shorted but was taking up an additional 2.5 hrs .

If the NHAI wants to set an example to showcase what they can do then this expressway is the best one .

As many who have repeatedly said before, good roads, excellent interchanges and signages through out, thoughtful underpasses for livestock and people to get across.

But its one long snooze fest if you are driving alone with no one to talk to. Best option is to listen to some good stand up comedies and keep yourself entertained.

Be aware of the occasional monkeys crossing across the roads though.

No need to worry about fuel but load up on food though. setting up a food joint near to Nagpur or Shirdi now might be a profitable venture .

My Alcazar showed 23 kmpl through out the expressway between speeds of 100~110 kmph.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by callmeneo

If the NHAI wants to set an example to showcase what they can do then this expressway is the best one .

As many who have repeatedly said before, good roads, excellent interchanges and signages through out, thoughtful underpasses for livestock and people to get across.

.

Thanks for the update This highway can truly represent India at international level. Don't mind a correction in your post -- it's not NHAI but MSRDC who built Samruddhi Mahamarg. MSRDC ( Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation) operates under Maharashtra state Govt and the entire project was led and executed by Govt. Of Maharashtra. So NHAI has no role in this highway

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Thanks for the update This highway can truly represent India at international level. Don't mind a correction in your post -- it's not NHAI but MSRDC who built Samruddhi Mahamarg. MSRDC ( Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation) operates under Maharashtra state Govt and the entire project was led and executed by Govt. Of Maharashtra. So NHAI has no role in this highway

So NHAI has no role in this highway? Will the maintenance and toll collected of the expressway go to the state government?

[callmeneo]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Thanks for the update This highway can truly represent India at international level. Don't mind a correction in your post -- it's not NHAI but MSRDC who built Samruddhi Mahamarg. MSRDC ( Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation) operates under Maharashtra state Govt and the entire project was led and executed by Govt. Of Maharashtra. So NHAI has no role in this highway

Ya right. Its MSRDC and not NHAI. Saw that all through but forgot to mention .No Agenda behind it though

[armumbai]

[quote=vivek95;5470923]Thank you very much @RaahmiRathi and @Meer


Finally fulfilled my wish of driving my VW Polo 1.2 Comfortline Petrol on Hindu Hrudayasamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg ( HHBTMSM ) aka Mumbai--Nagpur Super Communication Expressway.

Hi Vivek95, I was wondering whether you noticed where the turn off to get to Tadoba would be. Is there an exit ramp before you get into Nagpur. Which place would it be at so as to allow me to check the time it will take and distance to get get to the MTDC resort in Tadoba. Thanks

[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by Trojan

...
The Samruddhi Expressway has made mince meat of distances and long distance travel has never looked so damn easy ever.
...

Are there fixed speed cameras setup along this highway? We saw overhead speed cameras (with digital speed boards) set up for each lane at regular intervals on the Trans-Haryana Expressway. Most of the cameras were not yet operational when we drove through the expressway in Sep 2022. They expressway had opened in Aug 2022. That highway had a speed limit of 100 kmph.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by armumbai

Hi Vivek95, I was wondering whether you noticed where the turn off to get to Tadoba would be. Is there an exit ramp before you get into Nagpur. Which place would it be at so as to allow me to check the time it will take and distance to get get to the MTDC resort in Tadoba. Thanks

Hello

For sure there was no signboard for Tadoba on Samruddhi Mahamarg which ideally should have been put up, considering it is such an important tourist/wildlife destination at a national level.

Anyways, for Tadoba the exit from Samruddhi Mahamarg would be Wardha. Since I too have been planning Mumbai--Tadoba soon, I was exploring the route options and so far I have gathered the info that Wardha--Hinganghat is a brand new cement road 2 lane. Hinganghat--Jamb--Warora is a good 4 lane ( part of NH7 till Jamb and then Nagpur--Chandrapur highway ). From Warora, Tadoba is very close but I am not sure of the road conditions. Hope someone else can help on this one. If Wardha--Jamb direct road is in good condition, I think that would be the best connection towards Tadoba from Mumbai/Pune/Aurangabad

[armumbai]

I have gathered the info that Wardha--Hinganghat is a brand new cement road 2 lane. Hinganghat--Jamb--Warora is a good 4 lane ( part of NH7 till Jamb and then Nagpur--Chandrapur highway ). From Warora, Tadoba is very close but I am not sure of the road conditions. Hope someone else can help on this one. If Wardha--Jamb direct road is in good condition, I think that would be the best connection towards Tadoba from Mumbai/Pune/Aurangabad[/quote]

Yes this sounds like a great suggestion. Google maps is showing Wardha to Moharli as a 3 hour drive. Of this there will be a saving of about 2.5 hours as one doesn’t need to get to Nagpur but branches off at Wardha itself. Thanks so much for this, now to start planning a trip to Tadoba

[Trojan]

Originally Posted by pjbiju

Are there fixed speed cameras setup along this highway? We saw overhead speed cameras (with digital speed boards) set up for each lane at regular intervals on the Trans-Haryana Expressway. Most of the cameras were not yet operational when we drove through the expressway in Sep 2022. They expressway had opened in Aug 2022. That highway had a speed limit of 100 kmph.

Hi,

No cameras installed as yet, but am sure that's coming soon and its important too.

[revsperminute]

Maybe they will end up doing what they have done on the Mumbai Pune Expy where 70 percent of the cameras are for show only.