Sivaram's Blogs

CHAPTER - 1: INTRODUCTION: (updated Dec 13/ 2017) This is a travelogue, a narrative, a true-story and an adventure. My cousin Ravindra will join in this journey with me. Other than anything, it is the expression of our passion for train travel. We are hoping to get a good experience of the unity in diversity that India is so well-known for. Trains and train travel has inspired me since I was a child. I dreamt of travelling in a train when I was not travelling in one. Our home in Tenali (Andhra Pradesh) was a couple of hundred meters from the town railway station and I spent most evenings on the railway platform watching the trains go by, and a rare train coupling or changing the engine. My grandfather, who just retired from National Physical Laboratory, ignited this interest by giving me a set of questions on trains and stations that I should get answers to. These ranged from the voltage of the overhead traction, to the type of current in the train coaches, to the meaning of num...

If you do not like reading on web, please download the pdf in the "links" section on the right side. Thank you.  Foreword   This wonderful piece of writing is the end product of imagination of a young boy in his teens and his fascination for Trains and Indian Railways. He might have written it just for his love of traveling in trains and then of course he involved his own created fictional detective “George Wilson” and his assistant “Raghuvir” The story was written in August 1993 and was lost in the attic of his house. After much persuasion and difficulty it was brought out and here we have it. The Names of Cities, Trains, their timings and some other facts mentioned in this story belong to as they were in the year 1993. -Ravindra Khandrika 16 September 2014  Snails on Wheels   1. Introduction    “Raghu, I’ve got a brilliant idea today. Guess it!” Wilson was in his usual mood during the supper. “Well, maybe you are planning to buy a vi...

I read in the 52 weekends book that Yercaud is also called poor man's Ooty. And heard from friends and on internet that GRT is a good hotel to stay. A friend told me that the service at Grand Palace was not as expected. I wanted to go to Yercaud for about an year now and just kept on postponing it. GRT did not have any rooms available for the weekends. Our desperation to go on a long drive reached the peak. We finally decided to book a room at GRT for Friday, take the day off and drive away. The reservation was simple through web. I confirmed my booking with the hotel and requested that if they had different views of rooms, I prefer the best they had, that would have a view of every thing. Only valley view and Panorama room were available and going by the names, the latter looked impressive. So, booked it away. We closed doors and took off from Gate-B15 (my parking lot number) 25 minutes behind schedule at 7.25 AM. We took the Begur Kappa road from Bannerghatta road and touched Hos...