Amazing facts about Indian Railways


            AMAZING FACTS ABOUT INDIAN RAILWAYS


Indian Railways is one of the largest railways networks in the world and the largest railways network to be operated by a single Govt.. It has been in operation for nearly 170 years, since April 16, 1853. 


The first railway on Indian sub-continent ran over a  stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane. The idea of a railway to  connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan and with the Thal and Bhore Ghats  inclines first occurred to Mr. George Clark, the Chief Engineer of the  Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843.  
The formal inauguration ceremony was performed on 16th  April 1853, when 14 railway carriages carrying about 400 guests left  Bori Bunder at 3.30 pm "amidst the loud applause of a vast multitude and  to the salute of 21 guns." The first passenger train steamed out of  Howrah station destined for Hooghly, a distance of 24 miles, on 15th  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 subcontinent.

In south the first line was opened on Ist July, 1856 by  the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Vyasarpadi Jeeva Nilayam  (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  3rd March 1859. The first section from Hathras Road to Mathura  Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19th October, 1875.

The first electric train ran between Bombay VT and Kurla in the year 1925. 


Indian Railways owns the longest railway platform in the world at Kharagpur with a length of 2,733 ft in length. 



Indian railways still has the oldest preserved locomotive in working  order, the Fairy Queen which was made way back in 1855. It is the oldest functioning steam engine in the world, which  finds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and got Heritage Award  at the International Tourist Bureau, Berlin in March, 2000.




On operational front, Delhi Main station entered the  Guinness Book for having the world’s largest route relay interlocking  system.


Darjeeling Himalayan Railways attained the World Heritage Status from UNESCO. 

Luxury Trains


Luxury rail journeys have come a long way in India since the  introduction of Palace on Wheels train in 1982. Nowadays, there are an  array of luxurious tourist trains offering extravagant journeys across  select destinations and regions for enchanting Indian holidays. Train  tours offered by Maharajas Express, the Indian Maharaja, Deccan Odyssey  and the Golden Chariot are the talk of luxury travel circuits around the  world.

Lounge, Palace on wheels- 


Peacock Restaurant, Maharaja Express


Conference coach, Deccan Odyssey 


Twin bed deluxe cabin, The Golden Chariot




Trains:




  1. Fastest: New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express clocks a maximum speed of 150km/h on the Faridabad-Agra section. Covers the whole route in less than 8 hrs. Now Gatimaan Express clocks its maximum speed upto 160Km/h between Faridabad-Agra Section. 
  2. Slowest: Metupalayam Ooty Nilgiri Passenger which runs at a speed of 10kmph, 15 times lower than fastest running train. But since this train runs in hilly region there are speed limits to comply. The one that comes close is Pratapnagar-Jambusar passenger, with a maximum speed of 12km/h and an average speed of 11km/h. It takes 4 hrs for a journey of 44 km.
  3. Least punctual: Guwahati-Trivandrum Express with an average delay on a trip of approximately 11 hrs.
  4. Longest run: Vivek Express (Kanyakumari-Dibrugarh) with approx. 83 hrs is the longest run(time) by a train. Kerala Express travels 3054km in 42.5 hrs making it the longest running train in a day.  
    Himsagar Express covers a distance of 3,751 km between Jammu Tawi and Kanyakumari.
  5. Shortest run: From Nagpur to Ajni (2.8km), introduced for crew to travel from Nagpur to Workshop in Ajni.
  6. Highest number of Stops: Howrah-Amritsar Express with 115 halts has the largest number of stops for an Express train. Trivandrum-H. Nizamuddin Rajdhani express runs the longest stretch (Kota to Vadodara, 528 Km) without any stops. 


Stations:


  1. Longest and shortest station names: Ib in Jharsuguda, Odisha and Sri Venkatanarasimharajuvariipeta near Chennai.
  2. Stations at the extremes: Northernmost railway  station is Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir. Westernmost is Naliya near  Bhuj in Gujarat. Southernmost railway station is Kanyakumari, while the  last station on the east of India is Ledo on branch line from Tinsukia.
  3. Stations at state boundaries: Navapur  (Maharashtra and Gujarat), Bhawani Mandi  (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan)
  4. Two stations at same location:Srirampur and Belapur are two different stations in Ahmednagar district  of Maharashtra which are both at the same location on the railway route  but on opposite sides of the track.
  5. Busiest station: Lucknow, with 64 trains per day.
  6. Junction with Maximum routes: Mathura junction with 7  routes- Broad Gauge (BG) line to Agra Cantt, BG line to Bharatpur, BG  line to Alwar, BG line to Delhi, Metre Gauge (BG) line to Achnera, MG  line to Vrindavan and BG line to Hathras, Kasganj.
  7. Three Gauges: Siliguri is a station that has all three gauges (Broad gauge, Meter gauge and Narrow gauge) lines present. Now MG converted in to BG. NG still working.

Future:

  1. To give improved telecommunication systems on Railways,  Optical Fibre based communication systems has been adopted and laying  OFC has increased to 7,700 route kilometer this year. Rail Tel  Corporation has been created to make a nationwide broadband multimedia  network by laying optical fibre cable along the railway tracks.
  2. Anti Collision Device (ACD), state-of-art indigenous  technology of Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC) is currently under-going intensive field trials and is  capable of avoiding collision between trains.
  3. Sky bus metro is another innovative, economic and  eco-friendly mass rapid transportation solution devised by Konkan  Railway.
  4. Self Stablising Track (SST) devised by KRC, which is undergoing  trials at present, will help Railways run the fastest train in the near  future and will make tracks much more safe and sustainable.

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