Indian Railways

Indian Railways – few interesting facts

•  World’s 3rd largest railway network under a single management with 67,312 kms in route  length and a track length of 1,14,907 kms.
•  Every day the distance traveled by the trains of Indian railway is 2½ times the distance  between earth and moon.
• Carries the population equivalent to Australia on its trains on a daily basis i.e. 23 million people.
• Transports 1097 million tons of freight annually, that’s 3 million tones every day.
• Supports 13.76 lakh people through employment(World’s 7th largest employer by strength).
• Operates more than 20000 trains daily – 12617 passenger trains and 7421 freight trains.
• At any given time, around 1% of the population of the country is on the move on trains.
• Transports 90% of total coal moved in the country, supplying 50% of the power to the country.
• Cost of constructing a kilometer of the electrified railway track comes around Rupees 13 crore.
• Fastest train on the tracks, Gatimaan Express with a max speed of 160 kmph and an operating speed of 113 kmph.
• The first rail line of the Indian sub-continent came up near Chintadripet Bridge (presently in Chennai) in Madras Presidency in 1836.
• The first train became operational on 22 December 1851 at Roorkee(freight). First passenger train started in 16 April 1853, between Bori Bunder in Mumbai and Thane, a distance of 34 kms. It was built by Great Indian Peninsular Railway.
• At the time of independance(1947), there were a total of 42 Railway systems in India.
• Railways were nationalized in 1951.
• The trains have 5 digit numbering system.
• There are a total of 7112 stations in Indian railways.
• AC class is the most profitable class of Indian railways.
• Second class has the highest occupancy followed by sleeper class.
• 3rd longest electrified tracks(over 28000 kms) in the world, after China and Russia.
• Indian Railways also has the world’s first CNG locomotive.
• Revenue stood at Rs 1.634 trillion for 2014-15.
• Its divided into 17 railway zones.
• Indian railways also serves limited service to Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan.

*Data Source: Wikipedia,www.quora.com and indianrail.gov.in