A HARD DAYS NIGHT

I had a cut journey ticket, in that, I had 2A from BV to LKO and 3A from LKO to GWL. This train, as of this writing, is all ICF and has 1 Second AC and 3 Third AC coaches. I had a lower berth from my town station to the state capital. No unnecessary extra passengers, just me and my small bag on the lower berth. I mostly just saw out the window. Had tea at Gonda Jn. Either case, whenever I left my berth and returned...
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to it, I found it unoccupied [ as it should be ]. Had a good experience, even had a little nap, before Lucknow came. A fairly uneventful journey so far.

Now, everything changed when I switched from 2A to 3A. I had a Side Lower berth and I already saw two people ensconced in my seat. One of them didn't even budge until I had to explicitly ask him to. Heck, it was so crowdy that I couldn't understand it. IR hadn't turned this train into an all AC config where pax had no place to go. It had 9 SL coaches still but every single staff and police person had to come into 3rd AC for some reason. At CNB, I got down to get my pre ordered food [ my experience with Dominoes was bad, Apparently they had made my food at the right time of the train's arrival without checking that the train was running more than an hour late since the dawning of the sun]. Still, before I could gorge on my pizza, I again found another person sitting on my berth whom I had to ask to leave. This guy, just nonchalantly said he was a Loco Pilot in response. And what am I supposed to do with that response? That doesn't allow you a license to sit on a passenger's seat. The only person who can sit on Side Lower apart from me during day time is the person whose seat is on the Side Upper range. And that person was happily sleeping in the upper bay. I almost complained on "Rail Madad" site before this person left and I could eat my pizza. Again, lo and behold, the train barely left CNB and stopped at the next unscheduled stop in Kanpur, did tons of 'staff' board our coach again with one asking can he sit till Jhansi as if Jhansi is next door. Good thing I slept at my berth otherwise Stephenson knows how many people would have asked to sit. It was only after JHS did the crowd ease down. Railfanning wise, I could hardly do any footplating post LKO because of the fear of losing the seat. I only got down at CNB and JHS before finally deboarding at GWL with delay of 1.5 hrs.