Travel review on a new SETC bus

• Date : 24 – Jan- 2014
• Trip : Hosur – Madurai
• Route : #846  Bangalore – Madurai
• Bus  :   TN-01 – AN – 0653 of Madurai SETC depot

Reached Hosur bus stand at 08:50 PM .Now a days there are many options  to travel to Madurai. Couple of years ago  it was a tough job to board a direct bus to Madurai from Hosur ,but now there are good number of  ordinary direct services introduced by both TNSTC – Salem & TNSTC – Madurai.If i remember correctly there is 1 ordinary at 08:00 AM and  4 ordinary services and 1 UD service betwreen 04:15 PM and 09:00 PM .These are apart from 23 services operated by SETC  from Bangalore towards Madurai. If some one looks for a cut trip till Salem ,there are many Trichy ,Covai bound guys staring from Hosur and these are new and really fast.

There was a prior plan to try an new SETC  along with Dhandapani till Salem, so we zeroed down the Bangalore – Pollachi bus which starts at 08:00 PM at Bangalore.But the plan was dropped in the final moments fearing that i could not manage a seat in that bus .By that time one more new SETC of the same batch was standing in front of me . The bus was TN-01-AN -0653 . It was a new Ashley 12 M 43 seater introduced on Nov-2013 built by Trichy in house unit and operated by SETC Madurai depot . As a new bus this was allotted to Kodaikanal – Bangalore ,but mostly this one and his pair TN-01-AN-0652 are pressed into Bangalore – Madurai service .So no second thoughts after spotting him  and just hopped into the seat just behind to driver .

We started at 09:37 PM and it was another 5 mins to come out of Hosur bus stand. The driver was in his Blue uniform and very calm . Our bus was roaring from the word GO and i was very much joyed to see SETC living up to it’s name  “STATE EXPRESS”.One important thing i noticed is that the gears were shifted in the right speed and bus was not lugging.Adding to my joy  we were competing  Ernakulam bound Airavata Mercedes Benz tri axle.We had him twice during the cat and mouse game but finally a loaded truck blocked our way and Airavata took the lead till motel near Krishnagiri. In between there were few ordinary’s were overtaken with ease and a KPN non-ac sleeper was a near victim.

TN 01 AN 0653

Journey got resumed after 10 mins break and we hit Salem CBS at 12:50 AM. A good 20 mins was spent at Salem and we started towards Madurai at 01:10 AM .Passengers bound to Dindugal were allowed to board the bus. Driver change happened around 01:30 hrs on the outskirts of salem and he was also maintaining very good speeds and  without lugging. I dozed off by this time and in between woke up at karur and Dindugal bus stands for a brief period. Finally the voice of conductor shouting “Arapalayam ,Arapalayam ..” woke me up and it was exactly 05:30 AM and in next 10 mins i was dropped at MIBT. So totally 4 hours 30 mins to reach MIBT from salem .This is what i was expecting  from SETC .This is at par with any Omni services on this stretch and off course sparing volvo’s. I thanked  the driver while getting down for a superb performance.

Interiors – Body built by SETC Trichy BB Unit

The seats were comfortable on inclined position and felt the are placed very low .Gives me the feeling of sitting on a school bench on a normal condition 

I have been taking the services of SETC in the recent times and i am not disappointed . IMO they are not the same what they used to be couple of years ago.They are getting better and the new ones are helping them a lot . Understand that it will take more  time to  change the negative perception but let’s start spreading  the word of mouth on the positives of our beloved corporation

One need to think twice before simply writing off SETC now.

Thanks
Ram

Advertisement

Tags: Bangalore-Madurai, Hosur-Madurai route, SETC, SETC FAST, SETC UD, Travel review

This entry was posted by tn70b.

• January 26, 2014
• General, Others, Photos, SETC, Travel review
• 6 Comments