55 years have passed for the Karnataka’s first sleeper coach bus that traveled night between Bengaluru and Hubballi.

It was 1966 when hundreds had gathered at Shantinagar bus depot to catch a glimpse of the exclusive trailer bus fitted with beds, fans, a radio, a casste record player and telephones. The long bus was fitted with total 16 coats – 8 each on lower and upper floors.

Resident of Basavanagudi Nikhil Tivari, 8-year-old than who accompanied with his father to the Mysore State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) recalled “I still remember that day when we walked into that big bus workshop and spotted the light blue and red bodies of two buses linked to each other. The staff then gave us a tour of the inside and there were beds, cushions, lights and a radio. It was a sight to see the bus up close and my father captured it all on camera.”

K Dhanapal, a BMTC driver of “Bengaluru Darshini,” a city sightseeing service, the first sleeper bus had its inaugural run in March of 1966 from Kalasipalya bus stand. A second sleeper bus was also built, complete with a pair of buses for up and down journeys.

He said everyone on the road would stand awestruck to watch the long bus pass. Many would gather in the evening at the bus stop to see the bus depart to Hubballi and passengers travelling in its eight upper and eight lower berths were viewed with envy, and people thronged to the bus stand next morning when the bus from Hubballi reached Bengaluru.

The first sleeper bus was a prestigious project for than MSRTC. In the early 1960s, the state transporter sent a staff named Kannappa to West Germany to study sleeper bus body building. Kannappa returned and built the state’s first sleeper bus for inauguration in 1966 by joining two buses. It had a specially trained driver, two conductors and telephones onboard designed by Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) to communicate between the two coaches on the overnight journey from Bengaluru to Hubballi and back.

However, though pulled the crowd, the service was short-lived as the drivers found maneuvering such a long bus on the road extremely difficult. Within a few years, the buses were taken off service and gradually faded into oblivion. Unfortunately, nothing about the bus was mentioned in the history book “Sarigeya Suvarna Varshagalu” brought out on completion of 50 years of state establishment in 2011.