Indian Railways

The Indian Railways (IR) is the world's largest railway system under single management .Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways.It is administered by the Railway Board, which has a financial commissioner, five members and a chairman. Its headquarters are in New Delhi. It is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions. The number of zones in Indian Railways increased from six to eight in 1951, nine in 1952, and finally 16 in 2003. The Kolkata Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway. The State Governments have no authority on Indian Railways.In 2011-2012 Indian Railways earned 104,278.79 crore (US$18.98 billion) which consists of 69,675.97 crore (US$12.68 billion) from freight and 28,645.52 crore (US$5.21 billion) from passengers tickets.

History

A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832. The first rail line of the Indian sub-continent came up near Chintadripet Bridge (presently in Chennai) in Madras Presidency in 1836 as an experimental line.In 1844, the Governor-General of India Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India. The East India Company (and later the British Government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of operation.The first train in India had become operational on 22 December 1851 for localised hauling of canal construction material in Roorkee. A year and a half later, on 16 April 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder in Bombay and Thane.Covering a distance of 34 kilometres (21 mi), it was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan.

The idea of a railway to connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan and with the Thai and Bhore Ghats inclines first occurred to George Clark, the Chief Engineer of the Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843.

In 1854 Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General of India, formulated a plan to construct a network of trunk lines connecting the principal regions of India. Encouraged by the government guarantees, investment flowed in and a series of new rail companies were established, leading to rapid expansion of the rail system in India. The next passenger train steamed out of Howrah station destined for Hooghly, a distance of 24 miles, on 15 August 1854. Thus the first section of the East Indian Railway was opened to public traffic, inaugurating the beginning of railway transport on the Eastern side of the sub-continent. In South, the first line was opened on 1 July 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. In the North, a length of 119 miles of line was laid from Allahabad to Kanpur on 3 March 1859.

The first section from Hathras Road to Mathura Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19 October 1875. These small beginnings in due course developed into a network of railway lines all over the country. By 1880, the Indian Railway system had a route mileage of about 9000 miles. When India became independent in 1947, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951, the systems were nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Thus Indian Railways (IR) was born.

Present :

In 2003, the Indian Railways celebrated 150 years of its existence. Various zones of the railways celebrated the event by running heritage trains on routes similar to the ones on which the first trains in the zones ran. The Ministry of Railways commemorated the event by launching a special logo celebrating the completion of 150 years of service.Also launched was a new mascot for the 150th year celebrations, named "Bholu the guard elephant".

Before Independence the railways in India were a group of privately owned companies.Today, Indian Railways has one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world. It transports 20 million passengers and more than 2 million tonnes of freight daily.Indian Railways operates about 9,000 passenger trains and transports 20 million passengers daily and also provides limited international services to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches, but popular trains can have up to 24 coaches. Coaches are designed to accommodate anywhere from 18 to 108 passengers, but during the holiday seasons and/or on busy routes, more passengers may travel in unreserved coaches. Most regular trains have coaches connected through vestibules. However, 'unreserved coaches' are not connected with the rest of the train via any vestibule.

Indian Railways is one of the world's largest commercial employers, with more than 1.6 million employees.Indian Railways is the country's single largest employer. Staff are classified into gazetted (Group A and B) and non-gazetted (Group C and D) employees. While the recruitment of Group A gazetted employees is carried out by the Union Public Service Commission through exams conducted by it, the recruitment to Group 'C' and 'D' employees is done through 19 Railway Recruitment Boards which are controlled by the Railway Recruitment Control Board (RRCB). The training of all cadres is entrusted and shared between six centralized training institutes.

The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country.It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 65,000 km (40,000 mi) and 7,500 stations. In terms of rolling stock, IR owns over 200,000 (freight) wagons, 50,000 coaches and over 8,000 locomotives.As of 31 March 2010, Indian Railways had 5,022 diesel locomotives (increased from 17 on 31 March 1951), 3,825 electric locomotives (increased from 72 on 31 March 1951) and 42 steam locomotives (decreased from 8,120 on 31 March 1951)

Indian Railways operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on three gauges: broad gauge (1.676 m), meter gauge (1.000 m) and narrow gauge (0.762 m and 0.610 m).Broad gauge is the predominant gauge used by Indian Railways. Indian broad gauge—1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)—is the most widely used gauge in India with 105,000 km (65,000 mi) of track length (91% of entire track length of all the gauges) and 56,000 km (35,000 mi) of route-kilometre (86% of entire route-kilometre of all the gauges). Unigauge project is in progress to convert all tracks to broad gauge.However, the total route-kilometre has increased by only 21% (by just 11,500 km from 53,596 route-km in 1951) in the last sixty years or about 200 km per year. This compares very poorly with Chinese railways, which increased from about 27,000 route-km at the end of second world war to about 100,000 route-km in 2011, an increase of more than threefold. More than 28,000 route-km (34% of the total route-km) of Chinese railway is electrified compared to only about 21,500 route-km of Indian railways.

The Narrow gauges are present on a few routes, lying in hilly terrains and in some erstwhile private railways (on cost considerations), which are usually difficult to convert to broad gauge. Narrow gauges have 2,000 route-kilometre. The Kalka-Shimla Railway, the Kangra Valley Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are three notable hill lines that use narrow gauge, but the Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a metre gauge track. These four rail lines will not be converted under the Unigauge project.

Railway Zones in India 

IR owns locomotive and coach production facilities

Indian Railways -- Types of  Passenger Services 




Notable trains and achievements

• There are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites on IR – the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Mountain Railways of India. The latter consists of three separate railway lines located in different parts of India : -

1. Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a narrow gauge railway in West Bengal.
2. Nilgiri Mountain Railway, a metre gauge railway in the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu
3. Kalka-Shimla Railway, a narrow gauge railway in the Shivalik mountains in Himachal Pradesh.In 2003 the railway was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for offering the steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometre.

• Maharaja Railways (Gwalior Light Railway), a narrow gauge line of just 610mm width from Gwalior to Sheopur of 198 km. in length is world's longest narrow gauge railway line is in the UNESCO world heritage tentative list.
• Neral-Matheran Railway, a narrow gauge railway connecting Matheran is also a historic line.
• Palace on Wheels is a specially designed train, frequently hauled by a steam locomotive, for promoting tourism in Rajasthan. On the same lines, the Maharashtra government introduced the Deccan Odyssey covering various tourist destinations in Maharashtra and Goa, and was followed by the Government of Karnataka which introduced the Golden Chariot train connecting popular tourist destinations in Karnataka and Goa. However, neither of them has been able to enjoy the popular success of the Palace on Wheels.
• Samjhauta Express is a train that runs between India and Pakistan. However, hostilities between the two nations in 2001 saw the line being closed. It was reopened when the hostilities subsided in 2004.
• Another train connecting Khokhrapar (Pakistan) and Munabao (India) is the Thar Express that restarted operations on 18 February 2006; it was earlier closed down after the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
• Lifeline Express is a special train popularly known as the "Hospital-on-Wheels" which provides healthcare to the rural areas. This train has a carriage that serves as an operating room, a second one which serves as a storeroom and an additional two that serve as a patient ward. The train travels around the country, staying at a location for about two months before moving elsewhere.
• Among the famous locomotives, the Fairy Queen is the oldest operating locomotive in the world today, though it is operated only for specials between Delhi and Alwar. John Bull, a locomotive older than Fairy Queen, operated in 1981 commemorating its 150th anniversary. Kharagpur railway station also has the distinction of being the world's longest railway platform at 1,072 m (3,517 ft). The Ghum station along the Darjeeling Toy Train route is the second highest railway station in the world to be reached by a steam locomotive. The Mumbai–Pune Deccan Queen has the oldest running dining car in IR.
• Vivek Express, between Dibrugarh and Kanyakumari, has the longest run in terms of distance and time on Indian Railways network. It covers 4,286 km (2,663 mi) in about 82 hours and 30 minutes.
• Himsagar Express, between Kanyakumari and Jammu Tawi, has the second longest run in terms of distance and time on Indian Railways network. It covers 3,715 km (2,308 mi) in about 69 hours and 30 minutes.
• The Bhopal Shatabdi Express is the fastest train in India today having a maximum speed of 150 km/h (93 mph) on the Faridabad–Agra section. The fastest speed attained by any train is 184 km/h (114 mph) in 2000 during test runs.
• The third longest train in terms of distance on Indian Railways network is Navyug express between Jammu tawi to Mangalore covering a distance of 3609 km.
• Trivandrum Rajdhani is the longest non stop train in on Indian Railways network covering 528 km.
• Double-decker AC trains have been introduced in India. The first double decker train was Pune-Mumbai Sinhagad express plying between Pune and Mumbai while the first double-decker AC train in the Indian Railways was introduced in November 2010, running between the Dhanbad and Howrah stations having 10 coaches and 2 power cars.

Railway links to adjacent countries

Existing rail links:

1. Nepal – Break-of-gauge – Gauge conversion under uni-gauge project
2. Pakistan – same Broad Gauge. Thar Express to Karachi and the more famous Samjhauta Express international train from Lahore, Pakistan to Amritsar (Attari).
3. Bangladesh – Same Broad Gauge. The Maitri Express between Dhaka and Kolkata started in April 2008 using the Gede-Darsana route, in addition to a Freight Train service from Singhabad and Petrapole in India to Rohanpur and Benapole in Bangladesh A second passenger link between Agartala, India and Akhaura Upazila, Bangladesh was approved by the Government of Bangladesh & India in September 2011.

Under construction / Proposed links:

Bhutan – railways under construction – Same gauge
Myanmar – Manipur to Myanmar (under construction)
Vietnam – On 9 April 2010, Former Union Minister of India, Shashi Tharoor announced that the central government is considering a rail link from Manipur to Vietnam via Myanmar.
Thailand - possible if Burma Railway is rebuilt.

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Some Facts : 

India's longest scheduled single continous train journey can be experienced on the weekly Vivek Express, connecting Kanyakumari (southern tip of India) with Dibrugarh in Assam. The route distance of 4,286 kms covered in 82 hours as per schedule.

It runs about 14,300 trains daily.The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals three & half times the distance to moon

Railway Station with all the Three Gauges is Siliguri Railway Station

The longest platform in the world is at Kharagpur and is 2,733 ft. in length

Nehru Setu on Sone River is the longest Railway bridge

42 Railway companies operated in the country before independence