I had to wait for quite some time for my train to Mangalore, thought to make the time worthwhile. Just jotted down the timings from the board on to my Treo using Documents To Go excel.Man.. I had to retype it all. Copy paste from excel does not work.

Please do point out the mistakes if there are any. I got to add the train names too ! I feel it would be great to have timings for all stations in this format. As its easily rendered on any mobile device and no javascript required.

Personal Useless Stuff ; just for twitter
After a long time I came to Ernakulam from Calicut by car. The intended purpose was staying with my expectant wife till delivery. The road (NH 17) seems to be very much okay when compared to the previous trips. But took a long time to reach Alwaye and felt quite tired. The main reason was the failure of the air conditioner. For many days there were problems with the aircon, but since it was all short trips it was not much of a problem. There was no cooling, but the compressor seemed to get loaded, there was the typical loading sound difference of the engine when the A/C was turned on.

Yesterday morning I had gone to Mahe by car and I thought I’ll make a note of the usual stupidities or lack of road sense by my fellow drivers. The confusing signals given by some drivers might be helpful for foreigners driving in India.

Here are the most common counter intuitive confusions and tips in surviving road traffic in India.

• Putting the indicator to the right, to indicate to the vehicle following that you can over take.
  The worst part is if you wait for the vehicle in front to turn right, it will never happen, and if you decide to overtake and if the drive really meant to turn right, you are in for a crash.
• Hazard warning indicator to go straight
  I don’t know who started it, but I have seen this happening since the hazard warning indicators started to appear in Ambassador cars. If you try to teach someone he’ll never learn goes the old saying. Try convincing a driver about what it is and he’ll reply, you have right and left indicators and how can you indicate that you want to go straight in an A/C car.
• Beware of bus drivers, they might stop anywhere 
  Buses are like friends, they come in various sizes and shapes. Some may just barge in, some may force you down the road, overtake you and then stop abruptly in front of you at the next stop.And where is the stop you might ask, its the place where the driver feels like stopping, it tends to be the middle of the road, ensuring that you can’t overtake.
• Humps and bumps
  Can appear anywhere, sometimes with a sign board and sometimes without. Those incredible roads do test to alertness while driving.
• Road cuttings
  These are found in most places, as the roads are re tarred the thickness increases and the sides end up having cuttings. Sometimes the difference can be so much that it can overturn your vehicle if you make a sudden turn.
• Potholes, drainage, fountains
  Potholes appear every year in most Indian roads. Kerala roads are well known for their deep holes that can damage your spine and drive you nuts. yes you might find fountains in the middle of the road when water pipes are broken. Be careful of the drainage, the slabs might fall off most of the time if you drive over it.
• People, Cows, elephants and Tipper Lorries
  Watch out for all these, night or day. In some places you’ll find people who’ll actually bend in such a way that the vehicle can pass without touching their butt, and without moving their feet. Honking makes no difference, they’ll just not move until the vehicle has passed.

That’s it for now, add your comments so that I can I add that to list of things to watchout while driving in India.

Here’s the excerpt from Wikipedia

1A
The First Class AC: This is the most expensive class, with fares which can be on par with airlines. Bedding is included with the fare in IR. This air conditioned coach is present only on popular routes between metropolitan cities and can carry 18 passengers. The coaches are carpeted, have sleeping accommodation and have privacy features like personal coupes.

2A
AC-Two tier: Air conditioned coaches with sleeping berths, ample leg room, curtains and individual reading lamps. Berths are usually arranged in two tiers in bays of six, four across the width of the coach then the gangway then two berths longways, with curtains provided to give some privicy from those walking up and down. Bedding is included with the fare. A broad gauge coach can carry 48 passengers.

FC
First Class: Same as 1AC, without the air conditioning. Such coaches are not very common.

3A
AC Three tier: Air conditioned coaches with sleeping berths. Berths are usually arranged as in 2AC but with three tiers across the width and two longways as before giving eight bays of eight. They are slightly less well appointed, usually no reading lights or curtained off gangways. Bedding is included with fare. It carries 64 passengers in broad gauge.

Note :- Power plug points are provided on some AC coaches, depends on your luck. One important thing about the power provided is that its 110V AC and not the standard Indian AC voltage 230V AC. For laptops and mobile chargers its okay as most of the current adapters have SMPS that can tolerate input supplies from 100 to 260V AC.

CC
AC Chair Car: An air-conditioned seater coach with a total of five seats in a row used for day travel between cities.

EC
Executive Class Chair Car: An air-conditioned seater coach with a total of four seats in a row used for day travel between cities.

SL
Sleeper Class: The sleeper class is the most common coach, and usually up to ten coaches could be attached. These are regular sleeping coaches with three berths vertically stacked. In broad gauge, it carries 72 passengers per coach.

2S
Seater class: same as AC Chair car, but without the air-conditioning.

G
General: The cheapest accommodation, with seats made of pressed wood. A seat may not be guaranteed and tickets are issued usually two hours before the scheduled departure of the train. These coaches are usually heavily crowded.

Now what I wanted to note was AC 3tier is more expensive than AC Chair car but Indian Railway Catering and Tourism (IRCTC) doesn’t give any benefit for AC 3 Tier  travel  while using Shubh Yatra Card. BTW the card is the Frequent Traveler card provided with an initial charge. The only benefit apart from getting free tickets on reaching 500 points is that you don’t have to purchase platform tickets when you have the card. Its unfair in not giving points for AC 3 tier as the charges are higher than AC chair car. I wonder who gave such great ideas to Indian Railways