10 Facts you should know about Indian Railways
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853 from Bombay to Thane. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world and today Indian Railways is the world’s ninth largest commercial or utility employer, by number of employees, with over 1.4 million employees. Here are some interesting facts about Indian Railways:
Fastest train in India: New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express is the fastest train in India. The all air-conditioned superfast train clocks a maximum speed of 150km/h on the Faridabad-Agra section.
It also has the highest commercial speed – 89.87 km/h- and covers the 704 km New Delhi – Bhopal stretch in 7 hours 50 minutes.
Slowest train in India: Metupalayam Ooty Nilgiri Passenger which runs at a speed of 10kmph, 15 times slower than fastest running train. 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.
Trains with most stops: The record for maximum number of stops by an Express/Mail train is held by Howrah – Amritsar Express 115 halts, followed by Delhi – Howrah Janata Express 109 halts and Jammu Tawi – Sealdah Express 99 halts.
Junction with most number of routes originating from it: 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 (MG) line to Achnera, MG line to Vrindavan and MG line to Hathras, Kasganj.
Six route junction – Bhatinda. Five route junctions – Lucknow, Guntakal, Katni, Varanasi, Kanpur Central, Villupuram, Dabhoi, and Nagpur.
Longest Platform: Indian Railways owns the longest railway platform in the world at Kharagpur (West Bengal) with a length of 2,733 ft (1072.5 m) in length.
First Railroad: The first railroad was constructed by two Indians (Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Jaganath Shunkerseth) and not the British.
Railway Network: Though it is commonly believed, India doesn’t have the largest railway network in the World. India comes fourth with approx. 64,000 km of railroad after US, Russia, and China.
If the tracks were to be laid out from one point to another around the equator, it would circle it one-and-a-half times.
Distance Covered: The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains daily on the Indian Railways daily equals three & half times the distance to moon.
Worst Rail Disaster: In the Bihar train disaster on June 6, 1981, a passenger train carrying 800 or more passengers between Mansi and Saharsa, derailed and plunged into the river Bagmati while it was crossing a bridge.
After five days, more than 200 bodies were recovered, with hundreds more missing that were feared washed away by the river. Estimates of total deaths range from 500 to 800 or more. It was the worst Indian rail disaster.
Passenger Load: The Indian Railways (IR) carries over 25 million passengers daily which is perhaps more than the entire population of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania put together.
Annually Indian Railways ferries 7.2 billion passengers (nearly 6x India’s current population).