If you, like me are bored, then welcome to this post.
As many of you may have known, I had quite a fascination for BEST’s Cerita fleet, which some of you know as the Kinglong fleet. These Purple Faeries, however bad they were just fascinated me, because well, I found them cool.
I did, back in 2015-16 try my best (pun intended) to upload as many pictures of them possible on to the Wikimedia Commons. You can check it out by clicking here.
Now, I shall share with you a lot of images of these buses, on one specific route: AS-700 between Borivali Railway Station (East) and Thane Railway Station (West)/Kopri. Be prepared for the onslaught.
The first of these images is the featured image that you saw at the top of this post. That is a picture of an AS-700 belonging to the Mulund Depot parked at Borivali Station (East).
This is an AS-700 belonging to the Magathane Depot operating between Magathane Depot and Thane Station (East). This picture was clicked north of the National Park flyover by Kunal Jadhav.
This is AS-700, once again belonging to the Magathane Depot en route Thane Railway Station (East), clicked bu Kunal Jadhav.
Another AS-700 of the Magathane Depot, once again headed to Thane from Magathane Depot. A fabulous click by Kunal Jadhav, this was clicked on Ghodbunder Road (State Highway 42) just after taking a turn at Fountain Hotel. You can see the reflection of IRB’s Thane Ghodbunder Toll Road Private Limited (TGTRPL)’s Toll Plaza in the windscreen of the bus.
Clicked once again by Kunal Jadhav, this AS-700 is headed to Borivali Station (East) from Thane (Kopri) and belongs to the Mulund Depot. This picture was clicked on Ghodbunder Road and judging by the slope and the curve behind the bus, I’d say it was taken at Kaju Pada/Chena Gaon.
A lone AS-700 waits at Borivali Station (East). Clicked by Kunal Jadhav, no other details are visible in the picture.
This is yet another AS-700 parked at Borivali Station (East) bound for Thane. The bus belongs to the Mulund Depot, its LED display wasn’t functional and the route was written on the front left side of the windshield in chalk, above the CNG sticker. Picture clicked by Akshay BEST.
Here is another bus image clicked by Akshay BEST. I’m assuming this bus is turning into the Magathane Depot and thus, belongs to the same.
Note: Thanks to Akshay for clarifying that this bus was actually taking a turn from the Depot and headed to Borivali Station.
Another click by Akshay BEST, I’m not sure if this bus is running on AS-700 or AS-524, both of which started from Borivali Station (East) and had buses operating out of the Magathane Depot.
Thanks to Akshay for clarifying that this bus was an AS-700 only.
Clicked by Binai Sankar, this shows a BEST Cerita and a TMT Volvo parked together at Thane Station. The Cerita belongs to the Mulund Depot.
Here is an AS-700 at Borivali, belonging to the Mulund Depot. It had just received a fresh coat of paint.
Here is a bunch of them parked at Mahathane Depot to get refuelled.
This bus, affectionately titled Ugly Duckling by Akshay is an AS-700 parked at Borivali. It was covered with Vinyl ads (see the image below) earlier and has been peeled off.
And last but not least. AS-700 with full body vinyl ads belonging to the Mulund Depot. The bus number is 1234.
Note, all images credited to Akshay BEST and Akshay Buses belong to Akshay Marathe (not to be confused with the Aam Aadmi Party’s Akshay Marathe).
So far, that’s about the BEST I could get. Stay tuned to more inanities.
In case you’re wondering by the bus operates from different starting points, BEST did that quite often. Here is a snapshot.
You can view BEST’s AC timetable from 2013 by clicking here.
A huge thanks to the photographers for clicking these images and uploading them to Flickr. Please do open the images and follow them.
