Went to Sabarimala on 13th Feb using Bengaluru to Kottarakara SD RSC677, started from Shantinagar BS at 6:30PM and reached Chengannur at 7:45PM, the driving by first driver till Palghat was very bad, he was reckless, going from one end of the road to the other end, sudden acceleration, hard braking and jumping all the speed breakers, infact everyone was cursing him in the back and nobody was able to sleep and the second driver took over from Palghat at 2:45AM and driving was event less.
RSC677 overtook Garuda three times from Salem till Palghat, I think 6PM TVM Garuda is speed locked to 85KMPH as he couldn’t overtake us even once after several attempts and and if Garuda is at palghat at 2:30AM then his travel time to TVM will be not less than 14-15 hours
Many seats in the RSC677 have broken seat back covers, pushback not working, I think its high time Kerala RTC stops using refurbished seats in their SD buses
From Chengannur to Pamba took the bus KL15 6162, this AL bus was not able to climb even the smallest steeps and the driver was trying his best with 1st gear to crawl and engine was making huge sound while crawling.
Return was by Kottayam to Bengaluru SD RSC779, started at 5:30PM on 15th Feb and this was in much better seats and interiors and driving was very good with no heroics and reached Bengaluru at 6:15AM, This bus has less patronage even on weekends and was more than half empty till Perithalamanna and became full here and most of the passengers were boarded at Thrissur and Perithalamanna
Thank you for reading: Ashwath Muniswamy
