Royal Cruiser, one of the biggest Volvo operators in East India will soon stop its daily Siliguri - Kolkata / Kolkata- Siliguri Volvo service due the poor road conditions. Due to the bad roads, the Volvo bus takes around 12-14 hours, whereas the same distance on other Indian routes takes seven to eight only!
There are very bad stretches between Dalkhola and Siliguri and Barasat and Dalkhola which damanges the suspension of the bike badly. A Volvo B7R has four air bellows, each of which is replaced every 2,00,000km in normal usage. But on this route, the operators have had to change two of the bellows in less than 10,000km!
The state govt and NHAI have not repaired these stretches for ages now. Infact, when I took the same Royal Cruiser Volvo from Siliguri to Kolkata in Dec 2006, i too could feel the bad stretch, with our bus having touched its underbelly on numerous occasions.
It is a shame that the Volvo will no longer run on the route!
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