It's a well discussed topic but I decide that I will say about my experience.
I am transporting my Motorcycle from Bangalore City to Guwahati as luggage on the same train I am travelling, which is Bangalore to New Tinsukia Express on 24/04/2018 at 0300hrs.
The Usual process is to.
Empty the petrol tank.
Pack the bike, this is a personal choice.
Fill in the application form.
Get the form approved by the parcel officer.
Pay for the parcel and get a receipt.
Mark the receipt number on the Bike.
Bike is loaded on the same train.
Pick up at your destination.
So I was there in the evening 2 days before my train, and the guy at the counter said to come the next day and do the paperwork.
So I arrived the next day to get a completely different picture, they said it was not possible to load the bike with me.
At first I suspected they wanted more money, but it turns out that that was a once a week train and they have a lot of backlog. They also mentioned that the trains 5.8t cargo capacity was reduced to 3.4t meaning there was loser space.
I was suggested that I take the bike to Bangalore Cantonment as they have more trains going to Guwahati, the only problem was that the next train was on 26/04/2018 at 0000hrs. I had no choice but to try and persuade them to load it on this train as I would have lost 3 to 4 days of my trip if it didn't go as planned.
Finally a lot of effort, persuaded the parcel office supervisor to load the bike
The Parcel cost me Rs5500 and the packing cost Rs700.
I was expecting to be asked to pay for loading but there was nothing further.
Transporting your bike by train is not a easy thing. People probably need to plan at least a week ahead. So you can make alternate arrangements if needed.
If you have a very expensive bike whose value is more than Rs90000 then it's requires further permissions to be loaded.
I had to undervalue my bike as I had already spend a whole day to sort this out.
People have the assumption or are misguided to the fact that carrying a motorcycle as luggage on train is an easy process. When I was waiting for my parcel to get sorted 4 foreign tourists on 2 Royal Enfield arrived asking that theirbike be loaded on the train leaving on next 40mins.
It's was quite stressful to see as they had no clue what to do, people outside the parcel office had give hmm them wrong information and they were using that information to fight with the officials there.
I do not know if their bikes got loaded in the end as I had to leave.
Part 2.
Now for the story at the collection end.
It is 26/04/2018.The train arrived 5 hours late. My bogie like I said was in the front and the brake van at the back. So arriving at Guwahati I unloaded my luggage and went to the Cloak room to safely stowaway my luggage till I collected my Bike.
To my horror, the bike was not unloaded as the train was too long in regards to the platform.
So while frantically running between parcel officials and station officials, I saw the train leave without unloading my bike and to make matters worse the guard on the train said it will come back only on Monday 31/04/2018, 5 days away.
Mr.Peter at the cloak room was very helpful being a bike enthusiast himself. He made a few phone calls and I went and met the Parcel office officials on platform 8. Seeing my helplessness in this matter they took it upon themselves to see how they could get the bike back to me at the earliest.
They called 2 if the next stations the train who pass and explained that the bike needs to be unloaded and sent back ASAP.
The bike did not get off at Lumding but did get off and Dimapur and finally made its way back to Guwahati.
So finally I collected it the next day 27/04/2018