This also happened nearly two decades ago.We used to go from LJN to home station BV via LJN-BJU Express. That train today has RSA with LJN-JBP Express [though it is not strictly needed given double electrified tracks all along]. But back in the day, it was diesel tracks, much of it single line with a honking WDM-3D/A in tow and worst of all, no RSA. So the rake that used to come, same rake used to reverse from LJN.The turn around time was 2.5 hours but the train used to come terribly late and of course, would need easily ~1 hr for rakes to reverse and more importantly, passengers to board from souce. It didn't help that all trains then coming to NER used to undergo LR at LJN and almost all got higher priority than this crawler.
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This train often used to depart couple of hours late from source itself and would reach my destination much later in the night. So, what we did was board the Rapti Sagar Express [which doesn't stop at Babhnan], assumed it would over take the GD-GKP passenger somewhere b/w GD and Mankapur and we'll deboard at Mankapur and board the passenger upto our destination 30 kms away. Well, that didn't happen. The Rapti Sagar was slightly late and the passenger wasn't overtaken after Mankapur station had crossed. We OT the passenger and after that had an unscheduled halt ~10 kms before our destination. But of course, Rapti Sagar's next stop was Basti, so we deboarded the train and were then in the middle of two stations at ~2000 hrs. One was "Parsa Tewari", 1 km ahead and other was "Babhan Jyotia", 1 km before. We decided to walk/run with our luggage towards "Babhan Jyotia" since the previous station was newly built and we didn't knew if the passenger will halt there or not. We reached there in ~10 mins or so. Waited a few mins for the passenger and then boarded it. Reached our destination after 20 minutes more.

I took this train recently for traveling upto JSME/Jasidih. I had originally taken it once from Ayodhya to Asansol in winters when it got late by ~4 hrs. But that was in 3A and I was impressed by the on board cleanliness then. This time, I was supposed to be let down. Let's start, shall we.

I went to Babhnan station to catch the BTT/GKP-AY Passenger for MUR. I could have caught GD-ASN train from either MUR or AY but I chose MUR this time. And what a surprise this Ayodhya bound...
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passenger gave me. Only few months ago, I could easily get a window seat in this train from any intervening station. Now, there was no place even to stand. [To make it worse, a passenger was snoring on his bench as if he owned the seat.] I guess the extension to Bhatni and inauguration of Ram Temple has helped this train to get traction. IR should have given it a longer rake instead of this pitiful EMU thing that is both short [ I am not sure, but this is definitely not longer than the previous version and SHORTER than GKP-GD passenger which sees lesser crowd] and slow [mps restricted to 100 kph whilst the route can handle 110 kph upto MUR]. Anyways, we were looped twice for overtaking by special trains which ironically had mostly empty SL coaches. We reached MUR late but hardly few folks deboarded meaning most were meant for Ayodhya only.

Our train came ~30 mins late. We had reservation this time in SL class. This train has loco reversal 3 times. I do not know why it doesn't go straight via GKP. The route length might be the same but it'll easily shave off 1+ hour that these LR's require. I ventured into the lone newly added 2A coach[it wasn't there when I traveled last in it] to see how crowded it was. Yeah, Aryabhatta invented 0 just to define the nos of pax traveling in it. The coach remained quite sparsely occupied and I footplated upto Ayodhya. Saw a student[likely] who spat right into the middle of the standing area near the door. So much for education!

Ayodhya still has lots of work to be done. Even the Station Boards weren't erected at PF 2/3. Only 1 functioning shop was there. I got a side lower seat which wasn't occupied until Azamgarh lately. Saw Shahganj where the train again has an LR. Exchanged my upper seat in exchange for a lower berth since someone asked for it. Turns out I shouldn't have done it. We should remain selfish and only look for our self interest. It shouldn't matter to us whether half a dozen members of a family are scattered halfway across the coach and they need our help or not. Because that guy's reservation was only upto some station in Bihar[ he didn't tell me this before hand] which came in dead of the night. I had to come back to my original berth 3 coaches away by which I had lost my sleep. I hated myself so much for giving under pressure.

Anyways, morning came and half dozing, I got a window seat and the tracks rolled by Jhajha and ultimately JSME came at more/less the same time.