It’s been a while since I took a train to Chennai. I have been taking a bus instead. Last weekend, I took a volvo bus from ksrtc. There was no conductor for this particular bus and hence the driver doubled up as conductor to check the tickets of all passengers before starting. It took a long time for him and we were late by 40 mins. In-spite of starting at around 12 in the night, I still could not sleep, mine was the very first seat and the driver-conductor had not put down the flimsy namesake partition which cuts out some of the light from the windscreen. With the light from oncoming traffic blinding me, I could hardly have slept even if I was very sleepy. So I went and sat in the seat meant for the conductor and started chatting with the driver. I sat there for 3 hours until we crossed Chittoor.
I found it highly interesting and though at first, found it as a hindrance and boring, soon he brightened up with the substitute conductor’s company. I knew Volvo buses can go really fast but I was very much surprised to see that we were traveling at 100 kmph without as much as an increase in volume of the engine or the slightest of vibrations out of normal. If it weren’t for the speedometer reading I would not have believed it myself. He spoke about how he joined ksrtc, how he got promoted from driving Tata buses between small towns to driving Volvo bus between big cities, the 15 day rigorous training given for all drivers promoted to Volvo, the different engines and buses which ksrtc has, the electronics on his dashboard, the difference between our bmtc volvo buses and ksrtc volvo buses, about lorries and trucks and drivers in general and what not. We even did comparison between Volvo multi axle bus and a Mercedes multi axle bus 
.. If you know me and you have not guessed by now or might be wondering why the usual connection hasn’t come up yet, here it is – He was a substitute driver himself that day for the chennai route, his usual route was to Ernakulam and back. He started talking more after I told him I have been in Ernakulam for 3 yrs and have used the kochi-bangalore volvo many times. We compared the routes from Bangalore to Kochi against Chennai routes via Krishnagiri and Chittoor. Thrissur Palakkad route is still bad it seems. I do not know when it was good either.
