I recently travelled from Pune to Bangalore by Raj National Travels on Nov 5th 2006 and had the most horrible of experiences.
We left Pune at about 6pm and just when we though thinsg were fine, for no reason they stopped the bus even before reaching Kolhapur for about 1 and half hours!! The reason was apparently to move all passengers to another bus which came from Bangalore and would turn back! This at 2:30 AM when all the passengers were sound asleep. Raj probably saved few rupees as duty at the Karnataka - Maharastra border, but we lost our sleep and a precious 1 and half hours!
And the new bus had the worst suspension on any bus (forget a Volvo) and would not go beyound 50 - 60 KMPH. And after a horrible 6 hour ride, near Davanagere in Karnataka the suspension broke and the tire got punctured!! And guess what the driver - sorry, sorry the "Coach Captain" (They call those ex-truck drivers Coach Captains!!! ) and his helper had no clue how to change Volvo tyres! Though Volvo comes with sophosticated hydraulic jacks, they ran amoch and got as many boulders and stones as possible to change the tyres - like a true blue TATA Truck driver. Thanks to a passing Sharma Transport Volvo, who had a trained driver they were able to change the tyres taking a good 4 hours!!
And with no lunch break the bus finally reached Bangalore at 5 pm a good 8 hour late!! Everybody in the bus had lost a day’s pay and when we raised the issue with the office in Bangalore (Hotel Woodlands) - a 6 ft, 150 KG goon told us on our face that "such things happen" and we can do whatever we want... in short he said "get lost"!!
So people watch out - Raj National Travels is the worst thing that can happen to you and you don’t even get an apology.