Ashok Leyland and Tata Intercity Buses

[vanderlust]

A review of my short trip from Ernakulam to Coimbatore by Supaa Ashley AC bus on 6th May:

I'd booked tickets for some friends and myself in this service through their agent at Jos Junction MG road Ernakulam(Ensign agencies). The B'lore-Ernakulam Shama b9r was parked in front of their office.

The journey fare was Rs 310. They charge Rs 280 for the same operator's Non AC service !!

Now my journey: My boarding point was Kadavanthara at 1500(also the staring point). I reached by around 1445. It was an Irizar TVS built bus and about 2-2.5 years old. We(my friends and me) got our tickets verified and boarded the bus and settled down at our respective seats. My seat was #27, RS Window seat in the 7th row. The interiors of the bus were very clean and seats really soft and comfortable- no calf rest though.

The engine as well as the AC came to life by 1455. The bus was about half occupied at the starting point. We finally started at 1503(as against 1500). My friend tried charging his phone in the plugpoints in the bus, but none were working. We had pick ups at Kaloor, Palarivattom, Idapalli and Kalamassery. We finally crawled out of the busy stretches. We reached Aluva at 1535, waited for a passenger for 15 minutes, but did not turn up. We finally resumed our journey at 1548. Beyond Aluva the driver maintained a constant 80-90 kph. His driving style was really good. No unnecessary honking, clean overtakes. He even used indicators during lane changes. We overtook many KSRTC buses, trucks and cars. Inside the bus. there was an soporific atmosphere- no movie was being played. and almost all the pax were busy sleeping !. There were only about 5 seats vacant.

We reached Mannuthy at 1645 and as the 4 lane roads gave way to 2 lane bumpy roads, many pax were forced to wake up as the driver paid heed no heed to the bumps as tried to speed off, to escape the wrath of private buses on the Thrissur-Palakkad route, who keep honking and force to make way for them.

We stopped at Hotel Diana Vadakkencherry at 1735 and stopped for a tea/loo break. The journey resumed at 1750. The traffic was heavy from then on and overtaking became extremely difficult. We reached Palakkad(Chandra Nagar Jn) at 1845 and dropped a couple of passengers. There was no traffic snarl at Walayar Check post(1915).

We finally reached Gandhipuram by 2000. A journey time of 4.5 hours excluding 15 mins break and 15 mins wasted for a passenger, is pretty decent, considering the fact that 60 % of the route has 4 laning works progressing and a busy sunday evening traffic.

thank u

Ratings:

Cleanliness: 5/5
Bus quality:3.5/5
Punctuality: 4/5
Staff behaviour: 4/5

 

[rearengine]

nice reviews vanderlust!I think it was you who suggested me the bus for cbe to tsr some days back!I started from home that day by 2 pm. saw the ac supaa travels irizar bus standing in gandhipuram signal...but I got down at setc busstand by 2 20 pm...there were cherthala sf and tvm se ready to leave by 2 30 and 3 pm respectively..I got into the former without waiting.bus started sharp by its time.slowly came out of city and reached pkd busstand by 4 sharp.imm started from there.saw the supaa travels at a motel near vadakkanchery!finally bus reached ksrtc busstand,tsr sharp at 5 50 pm....I was surprised to see the 3 pm tvm se standingthere before us!nice journey overall except for bad suspension and worst pickup.but it managed to overtake a lot of buses,setc,trucks...

 

[venkateshk]

A review of my short trip from Ernakulam to Coimbatore by Supaa Ashley AC bus on 6th May:

I'd booked tickets for some friends and myself in this service through their agent at Jos Junction MG road Ernakulam(Ensign agencies). The B'lore-Ernakulam Shama b9r was parked in front of their office.

The journey fare was Rs 310. They charge Rs 280 for the same operator's Non AC service !!

Now my journey: My boarding point was Kadavanthara at 1500(also the staring point). I reached by around 1445. It was an Irizar TVS built bus and about 2-2.5 years old. We(my friends and me) got our tickets verified and boarded the bus and settled down at our respective seats. My seat was #27, RS Window seat in the 7th row. The interiors of the bus were very clean and seats really soft and comfortable- no calf rest though.

The engine as well as the AC came to life by 1455. The bus was about half occupied at the starting point. We finally started at 1503(as against 1500). My friend tried charging his phone in the plugpoints in the bus, but none were working. We had pick ups at Kaloor, Palarivattom, Idapalli and Kalamassery. We finally crawled out of the busy stretches. We reached Aluva at 1535, waited for a passenger for 15 minutes, but did not turn up. We finally resumed our journey at 1548. Beyond Aluva the driver maintained a constant 80-90 kph. His driving style was really good. No unnecessary honking, clean overtakes. He even used indicators during lane changes. We overtook many KSRTC buses, trucks and cars. Inside the bus. there was an soporific atmosphere- no movie was being played. and almost all the pax were busy sleeping !. There were only about 5 seats vacant.

We reached Mannuthy at 1645 and as the 4 lane roads gave way to 2 lane bumpy roads, many pax were forced to wake up as the driver paid heed no heed to the bumps as tried to speed off, to escape the wrath of private buses on the Thrissur-Palakkad route, who keep honking and force to make way for them.

We stopped at Hotel Diana Vadakkencherry at 1735 and stopped for a tea/loo break. The journey resumed at 1750. The traffic was heavy from then on and overtaking became extremely difficult. We reached Palakkad(Chandra Nagar Jn) at 1845 and dropped a couple of passengers. There was no traffic snarl at Walayar Check post(1915).

We finally reached Gandhipuram by 2000. A journey time of 4.5 hours excluding 15 mins break and 15 mins wasted for a passenger, is pretty decent, considering the fact that 60 % of the route has 4 laning works progressing and a busy sunday evening traffic.

thank u

Ratings:

Cleanliness: 5/5
Bus quality:3.5/5
Punctuality: 4/5
Staff behaviour: 4/5

Nice review vanderlust! Any specific reason you choose Supaa Travels?

 

[vanderlust]

nice reviews vanderlust!I think it was you who suggested me the bus for cbe to tsr some days back!I started from home that day by 2 pm. saw the ac supaa travels irizar bus standing in gandhipuram signal...but I got down at setc busstand by 2 20 pm...there were cherthala sf and tvm se ready to leave by 2 30 and 3 pm respectively..I got into the former without waiting.bus started sharp by its time.slowly came out of city and reached pkd busstand by 4 sharp.imm started from there.saw the supaa travels at a motel near vadakkanchery!finally bus reached ksrtc busstand,tsr sharp at 5 50 pm....I was surprised to see the 3 pm tvm se standingthere before us!nice journey overall except for bad suspension and worst pickup.but it managed to overtake a lot of buses,setc,trucks...

thank u rearengine,
Actually u cud have taken the Intercity express from Coimbatore at 1310 instead of taking a bus. It is really fast and takes only 2 hours to reach Thrissur..

Nice review vanderlust! Any specific reason you choose Supaa Travels?

Thanks venkateshk.

Supaa is a decent small scale opertor based in Coimbatore. They operate Ashley AC/Non AC buses in
Ernakulam-Madurai
Coimbatore-Ernakulam(2XAC, 1 X non AC)
Coimbatore-Trivandrum(1X AC)

The reason why i took this bus frcom Ernakulam is that it is the only afternoon dedicated Ekm-Cbe operator. There are other B'lore bound operators(Kallada/Sona/Parveen/Universel) but charge heavily for Coimbatore.(400-650). There is a Chennai bound Sona Isuzu at 6 pm that charges only Rs 310 to Cbe, but it takes 5.5-6 hours to reach Coimbatore, as it has pick ups at Thrissur and Palakkad as well as a dinner break. But Supaa bypasses thrisur and Palakkad, to reach Cbe in less than 4-4.5 hours....

You can check their website here : Supaa

 

[pramodp]

It was an Irizar TVS built bus and about 2-2.5 years old

It's probably the first bus in Kerala with the Irizar-TVS iT09 body. Built on a 177hp Viking chassis, IIRC

 

[vinchel23]

I had earlier pasted the same in Volvo b9r section but think this is the ideal place..

a short post of my travel on a Sleeper-Seater bus from Chennai-Trichur. ( and no photos as my phone had 2 units of charge...))
Travels : PSM Travels Lexia sleeper (as referred in Redbus)
Date : March 2nd
Seat : 4 ( 22 seats and 20 berths )
Fare : 590rs for seat (5% discount booked from their site)
Expected departure time : 7:45 pm from Koyambedu.

Had a quick unplanned trip to my home so couldnt book Tatkal ticket. Simply browsed Redbus in Chennai-Trichur, expecting seats only in the CHN-EKM Kallada multi but around 15 seats were available in this bus!
Having travelled once in this operator from TCR-CHN, decided to go for it. Booked a seat as I didnt want to try out the berth. Thought it would be narrow owing to my previous travel experience.

So reached at around 7 pm in Koyambedu. (was lucky to travel from Velachery-CMBT in just 1 hour in a 570 volvo that too at peak time)..

Had a hard time in finding the Shop no. 59 inside the bus stand. Finally with the help of some porters managed to find the shop which was tucked in the far right corner of the stand. Went inside and got my boarding pass and was asked to come at 7 : 45 itself. The bus was not to be seen at that time. I decided to wander about in the stand. Finally decided to take an unguided tour of the CMBT bus stand from shops 1-70

Saw the 7pm Rathimeena multi to TVM (Kathakali) all washed up and sparkling red with the "Trivandrum" board on it.
In the KPN stall, 3 multis (a white one and 2 grey ones) were parked.
Saw 2 Parveen Corona ACs.. guess the TVM and ERN leaving the stand. It was so crowded that the buses were parked in the entrance for about 10-15 minutes. Noticed that the coaches were very silent.

Apart from these saw numerous buses starting their journey. Most looked washed and fresh. For most buses, saw the cleaner mashing a melon for good luck in front of the bus.

By the time it was 7:45, went to the PSM stall again. The bus was ready and parcels were being loaded into it.
The bus was a light green with brown stripe with many scratches and dents on the sides and overall shabby look..
There was no label in the front.
The attender looked OK and he offered chairs to those waiting outside the stall and announced the bus will leave in 5 min. At around 7:55 the driver opened the door and people started boarding. Mine was seat 4, the second row aisle seat. The cabin lights were nil save for some weird shady red color lights. I settled down in my seat and tucked my bag under it.

The bus had berths on the Left upper and lower and double berths on the upper right side. For each berth, 2 seats.
The seat was wide, Prakash made and since the layout was supposed to be 2x1, was quite comfortable. Good back support but no thigh support. Also leg room was very less. Instead of comfortably putting 8 semi sleeper seats (column wise), they have added 10 seats.

The seat cover looked fresh while the berth sheet looked quite dirty. The curtains were also shabby. The leg room was very less and with the seat in front fully reclined, there was the space just for the knees.

Almost all seats were taken from the stand itself. The bus started at 8:15 promptly after 10 min wait at the stand entrance. The lights were switched off immediatly. The cabin door was closed but the noise inside the cabin was mostly high. The noise insulation appeared very poor.

The bus picked up speed quite fastly. The pickup appeared to be good and the driving sedate. Soon the driver was overtaking trucks left,right and center. Braking was not too hard and if hard was not felt in the cabin much.

As I had a tiring day, drifted off to sleep after curling to a comfortable position ( which involved placing one of my knees on my co-passengers seat.He didnt seem to mind). Slept soundly and woke up at Sathyamangalam or near to that. time was 4am I guess. Around 5 people alighted there. After that a brief bio-break. ( In the middle of nowwhere with darkness as company..)

The driver kept honking the horn making the passengers hurry in their task. So after the 5 min break, the bus resumed. After that I moved to a berth (left lower). The berth was large unlike the first PSM travel bus. The length was almost equal to a railway SL berth and the cushion was good. One end accomodated a small pillow also. After that enjoyed the journey lying down.

Reached Coimbatore at 5am. Around 50% of the passengers alighted here. Palakkad byepass at 5:50am, (no halt at Walayar). Trichur byepass at 7:15.am- the correct time as per redbus.

So inspite of starting 0.5 hours late, reached on time.

There was no dinner break. Just the 5 min loo break and a 20 min break at Coimbatore city for fuelling.

The driver and attender appeared Ok and they responded to all queries in a Ok manner

Overall 3/5 for the service and 2.5/5 for the bus.

Use this bus as the fare is not that bad

 

[venkateshk]

I had earlier pasted the same in Volvo b9r section but think this is the ideal place..

a short post of my travel on a Sleeper-Seater bus from Chennai-Trichur. ( and no photos as my phone had 2 units of charge...))
Travels : PSM Travels Lexia sleeper (as referred in Redbus)
Date : March 2nd
Seat : 4 ( 22 seats and 20 berths )
Fare : 590rs for seat (5% discount booked from their site)
Expected departure time : 7:45 pm from Koyambedu.

Had a quick unplanned trip to my home so couldnt book Tatkal ticket. Simply browsed Redbus in Chennai-Trichur, expecting seats only in the CHN-EKM Kallada multi but around 15 seats were available in this bus!
Having travelled once in this operator from TCR-CHN, decided to go for it. Booked a seat as I didnt want to try out the berth. Thought it would be narrow owing to my previous travel experience.

So reached at around 7 pm in Koyambedu. (was lucky to travel from Velachery-CMBT in just 1 hour in a 570 volvo that too at peak time)..

Had a hard time in finding the Shop no. 59 inside the bus stand. Finally with the help of some porters managed to find the shop which was tucked in the far right corner of the stand. Went inside and got my boarding pass and was asked to come at 7 : 45 itself. The bus was not to be seen at that time. I decided to wander about in the stand. Finally decided to take an unguided tour of the CMBT bus stand from shops 1-70

Saw the 7pm Rathimeena multi to TVM (Kathakali) all washed up and sparkling red with the "Trivandrum" board on it.
In the KPN stall, 3 multis (a white one and 2 grey ones) were parked.
Saw 2 Parveen Corona ACs.. guess the TVM and ERN leaving the stand. It was so crowded that the buses were parked in the entrance for about 10-15 minutes. Noticed that the coaches were very silent.

Apart from these saw numerous buses starting their journey. Most looked washed and fresh. For most buses, saw the cleaner mashing a melon for good luck in front of the bus.

By the time it was 7:45, went to the PSM stall again. The bus was ready and parcels were being loaded into it.
The bus was a light green with brown stripe with many scratches and dents on the sides and overall shabby look..
There was no label in the front.
The attender looked OK and he offered chairs to those waiting outside the stall and announced the bus will leave in 5 min. At around 7:55 the driver opened the door and people started boarding. Mine was seat 4, the second row aisle seat. The cabin lights were nil save for some weird shady red color lights. I settled down in my seat and tucked my bag under it.

The bus had berths on the Left upper and lower and double berths on the upper right side. For each berth, 2 seats.
The seat was wide, Prakash made and since the layout was supposed to be 2x1, was quite comfortable. Good back support but no thigh support. Also leg room was very less. Instead of comfortably putting 8 semi sleeper seats (column wise), they have added 10 seats.

The seat cover looked fresh while the berth sheet looked quite dirty. The curtains were also shabby. The leg room was very less and with the seat in front fully reclined, there was the space just for the knees.

Almost all seats were taken from the stand itself. The bus started at 8:15 promptly after 10 min wait at the stand entrance. The lights were switched off immediatly. The cabin door was closed but the noise inside the cabin was mostly high. The noise insulation appeared very poor.

The bus picked up speed quite fastly. The pickup appeared to be good and the driving sedate. Soon the driver was overtaking trucks left,right and center. Braking was not too hard and if hard was not felt in the cabin much.

As I had a tiring day, drifted off to sleep after curling to a comfortable position ( which involved placing one of my knees on my co-passengers seat.He didnt seem to mind). Slept soundly and woke up at Sathyamangalam or near to that. time was 4am I guess. Around 5 people alighted there. After that a brief bio-break. ( In the middle of nowwhere with darkness as company..)

The driver kept honking the horn making the passengers hurry in their task. So after the 5 min break, the bus resumed. After that I moved to a berth (left lower). The berth was large unlike the first PSM travel bus. The length was almost equal to a railway SL berth and the cushion was good. One end accomodated a small pillow also. After that enjoyed the journey lying down.

Reached Coimbatore at 5am. Around 50% of the passengers alighted here. Palakkad byepass at 5:50am, (no halt at Walayar). Trichur byepass at 7:15.am- the correct time as per redbus.

So inspite of starting 0.5 hours late, reached on time.

There was no dinner break. Just the 5 min loo break and a 20 min break at Coimbatore city for fuelling.

The driver and attender appeared Ok and they responded to all queries in a Ok manner

Overall 3/5 for the service and 2.5/5 for the bus.

Use this bus as the fare is not that bad

Good review vinchel23!! With your explanation I could visualize the bus interiors. I never saw or traveled in sleeper-seater bus. Since all interior is occupied by people sitting and sleeping, there is no room for luggage.

So will these buses have more luggage space in their belly and rear?

Will these buses have more height than regular semi sleepers?

 

[pramodp]

So will these buses have more luggage space in their belly and rear?

Not really. The floor height would be a bit lower, compared to semi-sleeper buses. So there's no option of having any luggage space in the belly and rear.

Will these buses have more height than regular semi sleepers?

Yes. These buses are taller than semi-sleeper buses.

VRL runs such buses (single berths on the LHS, and double upper-berths and semi-sleeper seats on the RHS). between Bangalore and Chennai. Those buses, though old, were really comfortable to travel. All of them are built on AshLey 12M chassis.

 

[deepak.yerr]

Good review vinchel23!! With your explanation I could visualize the bus interiors. I never saw or traveled in sleeper-seater bus. Since all interior is occupied by people sitting and sleeping, there is no room for luggage.

So will these buses have more luggage space in their belly and rear?

Will these buses have more height than regular semi sleepers?

The height of these buses is slightly more then the regular seater buses. You can see this bus in hyderbad itself. Diwakar travels is operating 3 2+1 AC sleepers between hyd-blore and also in bellary route seater sleeper and will introduce in chitoor route. Even the luggage space at the rear will be slightly less then seater buses as the floor of the buses will be low. KSRTC operates 2+1AC sleepers between blore-hyd and you can see them in MGBS. In the photos that you shot there is a corona buses on the extreme left end 2nd bus from start. that is a corona sleeper.

 

[venkateshk]

The height of these buses is slightly more then the regular seater buses. You can see this bus in hyderbad itself. Diwakar travels is operating 3 2+1 AC sleepers between hyd-blore and also in bellary route seater sleeper and will introduce in chitoor route. Even the luggage space at the rear will be slightly less then seater buses as the floor of the buses will be low. KSRTC operates 2+1AC sleepers between blore-hyd and you can see them in MGBS. In the photos that you shot there is a corona buses on the extreme left end 2nd bus from start. that is a corona sleeper.

Thanks for the info deepak.yerr! I will look for Diwakar buses. I did find Corona sleepers taller than Volvos .

---------- Post added at 11:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 AM ----------

Yes. These buses are taller than semi-sleeper buses.

VRL runs such buses (single berths on the LHS, and double upper-berths and semi-sleeper seats on the RHS). between Bangalore and Chennai. Those buses, though old, were really comfortable to travel. All of them are built on AshLey 12M chassis.

Will there be sufficient room to sit upright on upper breath? Because of set of seats at the bottom....

I think head room will not be an issue if the bus is 1+1 sleeper...