Recently traveled on 12314 from New Delhi to Durgapur (29 April) and returned back on 12313 from Durgapur to New Delhi (5 May). Was onboard coach A2 on both the directions. I would divided my experience here and rate it on the basis of food / onboard catering, cleanliness, timing, safety and railfanning.
On my DN train journey, the train departed from PF 13 bang on time. The train was much cleaned and well maintained (specific about A2 and A1, I would say). The Rail Neer water bottles came in without...
more... any delay. However they delayed the evening snacks, it is after the passengers started asking, he started handing out the snacks. Speaking about the snacks, it was good, not bad, but yes can’t be rated very good or excellent as well. In the snacks, we were given, Khasta Kachodi (which was very hard), a mayo sandwich (few years back they have stopped giving this thing), bhujia packets, a ladoo, a soan cake and tea kit. Overall the snack was good. Well, unlike Shatabdi trains were we are handed out hot water cups, here we were given flask directly. Coming to the dinner, it was served somewhere after Shikohabad. I had ordered Non-Veg - Chicken. In Non-Veg a person is given two options, one is Egg Curry and other being the Chicken. Generally, they won’t be telling the passengers that egg is also one of the option, but if asked will be given. Sadly, Jain Thali is not available. There are only three options in dinner, which are Egg Curry and Chicken in Non Veg and Paneer in Veg. In the dinner, I was served with Chicken Curry (3 pieces), Dal, Jeera Rice, Paratha (3 nos), Dry Veg (mix veg kind, it includes soya chunks, carrot and others), Dahi and Achaar. Speaking about the dinner, it was tasty, no doubt about it. The Chicken Curry was okayish kind, Dal was good. I liked the dry veg the most among all the things. I was travelling with 3 other people, so we had one person who had Paneer (Veg) and one had Egg Curry. And here I would like to mention that the Veg (Paneer) was tastier than the Chicken Curry. The Egg Curry was more or less okyish kind, nothing special or different. Ice-cream was served soon after we left Kanpur. Astonishingly, instead of the vanilla ice-cream, this time we were served with the strawberry ice-creams. In morning, just like the evening snacks, the morning tea got delayed. We were served bed tea near Asansol, which by the way is generally given near Gomoh or Dhanbad. Since, I was alighting at Durgapur, so I asked for my breakfast, which they gave without any issue. Earlier, they use to give excuses and other things, so that they could skip the breakfast for the passengers alighting at Durgapur. While the caterer was packing my breakfast, I found that there are quite a number of passengers from my coach and A1, who were alighting at Durgapur, got their breakfast packed from the caterer. In breakfast, you got three options. One is omelet, other being boiled egg and the last one is cutlet. In breakfast, I had the omelet. I was given two breads, omelet, butter, tea kit and a mango juice. Incidentally, chocolate and jam were missing. Upon asking he told me that it is not handed out any more. Earlier, I thought he did so, just to save them. However, during my UP journey, jam and chocolate were not given.
In the UP journey, all the way from Durgapur to New Delhi, the dinner was served after Dhanbad. The food was of very inferior quality. The rice was hard, the chicken curry, didn’t had curry and dal was worst. In addition to that I was served with Roti (3 nos), Dahi and aachar. No Dry Veg was served. Another thing which I observed was, that though they have two options for Non Veg (egg and chicken), however it is limited only for the passengers travelling from Sealdah. When we asked, the waiter rudely said that it is not for the passengers boarding from Durgapur, Asansol and Dhanbad. In the very similar case, when one my co-passenger asked him to call the Pantry Manager, only during that time he gave him the egg curry. Ice-cream was served along with the food. It was vanilla and was totally in melt condition. They skipped morning tea for those passengers who were sleeping. In the DN train, the attended even asked those passengers who were sleeping. Breakfast also was not good. I had omelet, and it was worst and rest I had already mentioned in the last paragraph.
Summing it up;
Food: For 12314 (4/5), I hope they again re-start the chocolate and the jam. For 12313 (2/5). For most of the things, they either didn’t have it or were not attending the passengers boarding from Durgapur, Asansol and Dhanbad.
Cleanliness: In both the trains, it was top notch. I will rate 4.5/5 on this.
Safety: Overall good in both the directions. RPF was doing rounds. It was good. Since I was alighting at every station, specifically in MGS and Gaya, so got to witness them taking rounds. (4/5 on this).
Timing: What IR did with this train is that they have given quite a slack between New Delhi and Kanpur, Gaya and Dhanbad and between Durgapur and Sealdah. So while we pulled up in Asansol and Durgapur, few minutes late, the train actually pulled up in Sealdah before time.
Railfaning: It was good. But yeah, I miss the parallel exit of Sealdah and Mumbai Rajdhani. Overtakes were less in New Delhi – Kanpur route, owing to the EDFC, the jams are not much there, as it use to be earlier. So en-route overtakes were less to none. High speed skippings, specifically Aligarh was something which I always look forward to (in both the directions). If you have boarded on 12314 on Friday, then look out for the overtake of the Ranchi Rajdhani near Parsabad (I don’t remember the exact station). My major overtakes on 12314 was with Mumbai Mail and Coalfield Express (after Dhanbad). Coming to the xings, I was able to capture Sealdah Duronto at Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay Stn (MGS) and Sealdah Raj, Howrah Raj and BBS Raj before Mughalsarai. Another thing which one can observe is that Howrah Raj will be closely following you till Mughalsarai, then the difference will be considerable, which will again be gaped near Dhanbad.
