Indian Railways data

Indian Railways

Indian Railways (Hindi भारतीय रेल), abbreviated as (Hindi भारे ) IR, is a Department of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Railways, and is tasked with operating the rail network in India. The Ministry is headed by a cabinet rank Railways Minister, while the Department is managed by the Railway Board. Indian Railways is not a private corporate body; however, of late IR has adopted a corporate management style.

Indian Railways has a total state monopoly on India's rail transport. It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting sixteen million passengers[1] and more than one million tonnes of freight daily.[2] IR is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees.[3]

The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country; the routes cover a total length of 63,140 km (39,233 miles). As of 2002, IR owned a total of 216,717 wagons, 39,263 coaches and 7,739 locomotives and ran a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains.[2]

Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Indian Railways operates both long distance and suburban rail systems.

Contents
1 History
2 Railway zones
3 Passenger services
4 Production Services
5 Suburban rail
6 Freight
7 Notable trains and achievements
8 Organisational structure
9 Rail budget and finances
10 Current issues
11 Photo Gallery
12 See also
History
Bombay Thana Train, 1853 -- One of the earliest pictures of railways in India
Main article: History of rail transport in India
A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832, but no further steps were taken for more than a decade. In 1844, the Governor-General of India Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India. Two new railway companies were created and the East India Company was asked to assist them. Interest from investors in the UK led to the rapid creation of a rail system over the next few years. The first train in India became operational on 22 December 1851, and was used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee. A year and a half later, on 16 April 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thane. Covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles), it was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh and Sultan. This was the formal birth of railways in India.


A view of the Burdwan Railway Station in 1855
The British government encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of five percent during the initial years of operation. Once established, the company would be transferred to the government, with the original company retaining operational control. The route mileage of this network was about 14,500 km (9,000 miles) by 1880, mostly radiating inward from the three major port cities of Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta ( Kolkata). By 1895, India had started building its own locomotives, and in 1896 sent engineers and locomotives to help build the Uganda Railway.

Extent of Great Indian Peninsular Railway network in 1870. The GIPR was one of the largest rail companies at that time.
Soon various independent kingdoms built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. A Railway Board was constituted in 1901, but decision-making power was retained by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon. The Railway Board operated under aegis of the Department of Commerce and Industry and had three members: a government railway official serving as chairman, a railway manager from England and an agent of one of the company railways. For the first time in its history, the Railways began to make a tidy profit. In 1907, almost all the rail companies were taken over by the government.

The following year, the first electric locomotive appeared. With the arrival of the First World War, the railways were used to meet the needs of the British outside India. By the end of the First World War, the railways had suffered immensely and were in a poor state. The government took over the management of the Railways and removed the link between the financing of the Railways and other governmental revenues in 1920, a practice that continues to date with a separate railway budget.

The Second World War severely crippled the railways as trains were diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. At the time of independence in 1947, a large portion of the railways went to the then newly formed Pakistan. A total of forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated as a single unit which was christened as the Indian Railways.

The existing rail networks were abandoned in favour of zones in 1951 and a total of six zones came into being in 1952. As the economy of India improved, almost all railway production units were indigenised. By 1985, steam locomotives were phased out in favour of diesel and electric locomotives. The entire railway reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.

Indian Railways is the second largest employer in the world, after the Chinese military.[citation needed]


Railway zones
A schematic map of the Indian Railway network
For administrative purposes, Indian Railways is divided into seventeen zones.

Sl. No Name Abbr. Date Established Headquarters Divisions
1. Northern Railway NR April 14, 1952 Delhi Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad
2. North Eastern Railway NER 1952 Gorakhpur Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi
3. Northeast Frontier Railway NFR 1958 Guwahati Alipurduar, Katihar, Lumding, Rangia, Tinsukia
4. Eastern Railway ER April, 1952 Kolkata Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda
5. South Eastern Railway SER 1955 Kolkata Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
6. South Central Railway SCR October 2, 1966 Secunderabad Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded, Vijayawada
7. Southern Railway SR April 14, 1951 Chennai Chennai, Madurai, Palghat, Tiruchchirapalli, Trivandrum, Salem (Coimbatore)
8. Central Railway CR November 5, 1951 Mumbai Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur
9. Western Railway WR November 5, 1951 Mumbai Mumbai Central, Baroda, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar
10. South Western Railway SWR April 1, 2003 Hubli Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
11. North Western Railway NWR October 1, 2002 Jaipur Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
12. West Central Railway WCR April 1, 2003 Jabalpur Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
13. North Central Railway NCR April 1, 2003 Allahabad Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi
14. South East Central Railway SECR April 1, 2003 Bilaspur, CG Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur
15. East Coast Railway ECoR April 1, 2003 Bhubaneswar Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam
16. East Central Railway ECR October 1, 2002 Hajipur Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur
17. Konkan Railway† KR January 26, 1998 Navi Mumbai None


†Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai). It comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board.

The Calcutta 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. Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven divisions.

A better[citation needed] schematic Map of Indian Railway Network

Passenger services

A DMU Train

An AC 3-tier coach
Indian Railways operates 8,702 passenger trains and transports 15 million daily across twenty-eight states and three union territories (Delhi, Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry) and Chandigarh). Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are the only states not connected.

The passenger division is the most preferred form of long distance transport in most of the country.

A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches, but some popular trains can have up to 24 coaches. Coaches are designed to accommodate anywhere from 18 to 72 passengers, but may actually accommodate many more during the holiday seasons and on busy routes. The coaches in use are vestibules, but some of these may be dummied on some trains for operational reasons. Freight trains use a large variety of wagons.

Each coach has different accommodation class; the most popular being the sleeper class. Up to nine of these type coaches are usually coupled. Air conditioned coaches are also attached, and a standard train may have between three and five air-conditioned coaches. Online unreserved passenger ticketing (suburban and non-suburban), introduced in 2002, is now available in about 1000 stations (2008) and is expected to top 1,00,00,000 tickets per day by the time it is installed in all 5000 stations. ATMs in many stations are equipped to dispense long-distance tickets, and some ATMs are even being installed on board select trains as well. Rail ticket booking through cell(ular) phone SMS is also being put in place.


Production Services

A WAP5 locomotive
The Indian Railways manufactures a lot of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components. This is largely due to historical reasons. As with most developing economies, the main reason is import substitution of expensive technology related products. This was relevant when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature.

Production Units, the manufacturing plants of the Indian Railways, are managed directly by the ministry. The General Managers of the PUs report to the Railway Board. The Production Units are:

Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan
Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi
Diesel-Loco Modernisation Works, Patiala
Integral Coach Factory, Chennai
Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala
Rail Wheel Factory, Bangalore
Other independent units of Indian Railways are:

Central Organization For Railway Electrification, Allahabad
Central Organization For Modernization of Workshops, New Delhi
Important maintenance workshops on IR are:

Southern Railway Workshop, Ponmalai (Golden Rock), Tiruchirapalli
Rail Spring Karkhana, Gwalior
Bharat Earth Movers Limited, Bangalore (BEML) is not part of railways, but manufactures coaches for IR and Metro coaches for DMRC and going forward for Bangalore Metro also.


Suburban rail

The New Delhi Metro railway
Many cities have their own dedicated suburban networks to cater to commuters. Currently, suburban networks operate in Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), Kolkata (Calcutta), Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune. Hyderabad, and Pune do not have dedicated suburban tracks but share the tracks with long distance trains. New Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai have their own metro networks, namely the New Delhi Metro, the Kolkata Metro,and the Chennai MRTS- Mass Rapid Transport System, with dedicated tracks mostly laid on a flyover as in other local EMU suburban service in Mumbai and Kolkata.

Suburban trains that handle commuter traffic are mostly electric multiple units. They usually have nine coaches or sometimes twelve to handle rush hour traffic (Hyderabad MMTS; abbreviation for Multi Modal Transport System has mostly six coach train with a single nine coach one). One unit of an EMU train consists of one power car and two general coaches. Thus a nine coach EMU is made up of three units having one power car at each end and one at the middle. The rakes in Mumbai run on direct current, while those elsewhere use alternating current.[4] A standard coach is designed to accommodate 96 seated passengers, but the actual number of passengers can easily double or triple with standees during rush hour. The Kolkata metro has the administrative status of a zonal railway, though it does not come under the seventeen railway zones.


Mumbai's trains handle 2 billion people annually
The Suburban trains in Mumbai handle more rush than any other suburban network in the world.[citation needed] The network has three lines viz, western, central and harbour. The Central Line starts from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) (Formerly Victoria Terminus or VT) and runs for more than 100 km till Kasara. The Western Line starting from Churchgate runs again for more than 100 km till Dahanu Road. It is thus the longest suburban rail system in the world. Also, it is busiest suburban network in the world, in the sense that it carries more than 6 million passengers each day. On 11 July 2006 six bombs were set off on these trains, targeted at the general public.


Freight

A single line rail bridge

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is a World Heritage Site, and one of the few places where steam engines are still in operation in India.

A Beyer Garrett 6594 Engine seen at the National Rail Museum
IR carries a huge variety of goods ranging from mineral ores, fertilizers and petrochemicals, agricultural produce, iron & steel, multimodal traffic and others. Ports and major urban areas have their own dedicated freight lines and yards. Many important freight stops have dedicated platforms and independent lines.

Indian Railways makes 70% of its revenues and most of its profits from the freight sector, and uses these profits to cross-subsidise the loss-making passenger sector. However, competition from trucks which offer cheaper rates has seen a decrease in freight traffic in recent years. Since the 1990s, Indian Railways has switched from small consignments to larger container movement which has helped speed up its operations. Most of its freight earnings come from such rakes carrying bulk goods such as coal, cement, food grains and iron ore.

Indian Railways also transports vehicles over long distances. Trucks that carry goods to a particular location are hauled back by trains saving the trucking company on unnecessary fuel expenses. Refrigerated vans are also available in many areas. The "Green Van" is a special type used to transport fresh food and vegetables. Recently Indian Railways introduced the special 'Container Rajdhani' or CONRAJ, for high priority freight. The highest speed notched up for a freight train is 100 km/h (62 mph) for a 4,700 metric tonne load.

Recent changes have sought to boost the earnings from freight. A privatization scheme was introduced recently to improve the performance of freight trains. Companies are being allowed to run their own container trains. The first length of an 11,000 km freight corridor linking India's biggest cities has recently been approved. The railways has increased load limits for the system's 220,000 freight wagons by 11%, legalizing something that was already happening. Due to increase in manufacturing transport in India that was augmented by the increase in fuel cost, transportation by rail became advantageous financially. New measures such as speeding up the turnaround times have added some 24% to freight revenues.


Notable trains and achievements
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a narrow gauge railway that still regularly uses steam as well as diesel locomotives is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The route started earlier at Siliguri and now at New Jalpaiguri in the plains in West Bengal and traverses tea gardens en route to Darjeeling, a hill station at an elevation of 2,134 metres (7,000 ft). The highest station in this route is Ghum. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, in the Nilgiri Hills in southern India, is also classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.[5] It is also the only rack railway in India. The Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) railway station in Mumbai is another World Heritage Site operated by Indian Railways.


Railway Pantry Cars

Emergency Openable window in passenger trains
The Palace on Wheels is a specially designed train, frequently hauled by a steam locomotive, for promoting tourism in Rajasthan. The Maharashtra government did try to introduce the Deccan Odyssey along the Konkan route, but it did not enjoy the same success as the Palace on Wheels. The 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 February 18, 2006; it was closed down after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. The Kalka Shimla Railway till recently featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for offering the steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometres.[6]

The 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 running locomotive on the mainline (though only for specials) in the world today, though the distinction of the oldest surviving locomotive that has recently seen service belongs to John Bull. Kharagpur railway station also has the distinction of being the world's longest railway platform at 1072 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.[7] Indian Railways operates 7,566 locomotives; 37,840 Coaching vehicles and 222,147 freight wagons. There are a total of 6,853 stations; 300 yards; 2,300 goods-sheds; 700 repair shops and a total workforce of 1.54 million.[8]

The shortest named station is Ib and the longest is Sri Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta. The Himsagar Express, between Kanyakumari and Jammu Tawi, has the longest run in terms of distance and time on Indian Railways network. It covers 3,745 km (2,327 miles) in about 74 hours and 55 minutes. The Bhopal Shatabdi Express is the fastest train in India today having a maximum speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) on the Faridabad-Agra section. The fastest speed attained by any train is 184 km/h (114 mph) in 2000 during test runs. This speed is much lower than fast trains in other parts of the world. The difference in these speeds could be in part attributed to the fact that the trains run on existing tracks, which were not designed for such high speeds.


Organisational structure

The headquarters of the Indian Railways in Delhi
Indian Railways is a department of the Government, being owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways rather than a private company. As of 2007, the Railway Ministry is currently headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Union Minister for Railways and assisted by two junior Ministers of State for Railways, R. Velu and Naranbhai J. Rathwa. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board, which has six members and a chairman.

Each of the sixteen zones is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration. In addition to the zones, the six production units (PUs) are each headed by a General Manager (GM), who also reports directly to the Railway Board.

In addition to this the Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE), Metro Railway, Calcutta and construction organisation of N F Railway are also headed by a General Manager. CORE is located at Allahabad. This organisation undertakes electrification projects of Indian Railway and monitors the progress of various electrification projects all over the country.

Apart from these zones and production units, a number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are under the administrative control of the ministry of railways. These PSU units are:

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India
Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation
Konkan Railway Corporation
Indian Railway Finance Corporation
Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
Railtel Corporation of India – Telecommunication Networks
RITES Ltd. – Consulting Division of Indian Railways
IRCON International Ltd. – Construction Division
Rail Vikas Nigam Limited
Container Corporation Limited
Rail Land Development Authority –for land management
Centre for Railway Information Systems is an autonomous society under Railway Board, which is responsible for developing the major software required by Indian Railways for its operations.

Rail budget and finances

A sample ticket; fares on the network are among the cheapest in the world.
The Railway Budget deals with the induction and improvement of existing trains and routes, the modernisation and most importantly the tariff for freight and passenger travel. The Parliament discusses the policies and allocations proposed in the budget. The budget needs to be passed by a simple majority in the Lok Sabha (India's Lower House). The comments of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) are non binding. Indian Railways are subject to the same audit control as other government revenue and expenditures. Based on the anticipated traffic and the projected tariff, the level of resources required for railway's capital and revenue expenditure is worked out. While the revenue expenditure is met entirely by railways itself, the shortfall in the capital (plan) expenditure is met partly from borrowings (raised by Indian Railway Finance Corporation) and the rest from Budgetory support from the Central Government. Indian Railways pays dividend to the Central Government for the capital invested by the Central Government.

As per the Separation Convention (on the recommendations of the Acworth Committee), 1924, the Railway Budget is presented to the Parliament by the Union Railway Minister, two days prior to the General Budget, usually around 26 February. Though the Railway Budget is separately presented to the Parliament, the figures relating to the receipt and expenditure of the Railways are also shown in the General Budget, since they are a part and parcel of the total receipts and expenditure of the Government of India. This document serves as a balance sheet of operations of the Railways during the previous year and lists out plans for expansion for the current year.


A 'Rail Over Bridge' under construction in Guntur Division.
The formation of policy and overall control of the railways is vested in Railway Board comprising the Chairman, Financial Commissioner and other functional Members for Traffic, Engineering, Mechanical, Electrical and Staff matters. As per the 2006 budget, Indian Railways earned Rs. 54,600 crores[9] (Rs. 546,000 million or US$12,300 million). Freight earnings increased by 10% from Rs. 30,450 cr (US$7,000 million) in the previous year. Passenger earnings, other coaching earnings and sundry other earnings increased by 7%, 19% and 56% respectively over previous year. Its year end fund balance is expected to stand at Rs. 11,280 cr (2.54 billion US$).[10]

Around 20% of the passenger revenue is earned from the upper class segments of the passenger segment (the air-conditioned classes). The overall passenger traffic grew 7.5% in the previous year. In the first two months of India's fiscal year 2005–06 (April and May), the Railways registered a 10% growth in passenger traffic, and a 12% in passenger earnings.[11]

A new concern faced by Indian Railways is competition from low cost airlines that has recently made its début in India. In a cost cutting move, the Railways plans to minimise unwanted cessations, and scrap unpopular routes.


Current issues
Although accidents such as derailment and collisions are less common in recent times, many are run over by trains, especially in crowded areas. Indian Railways have accepted the fact that given the size of operations, eliminating accidents is an unrealistic goal, and at best they can only minimize the accident rate. Human error is the primary cause (83%)[12] blamed for mishaps. The Konkan Railway route suffers from landslides in the monsoon season, which has caused fatal accidents in the recent past.

Contributing to the Railways' problems are the antiquated communication, safety and signaling equipment. One area of upgrading badly required is an automated signaling system to prevent crashes. A number of train accidents happened due to a manual system of signals between stations. However, the changeover to a new system would require a substantial investment. It is felt that this would be required given the gradual increase in train speeds and lengths, that would make accidents more dangerous. In the latest instances of signaling control by means of interlinked stations (e.g., Chennai - Washermanpet), failure-detection circuits are provided for each track circuit and signal circuit with notification to the signal control centres in case of problems.[13] However, this is available in a very small subset of the total Railways.

Aging colonial-era bridges and century-old tracks also require regular maintenance and upgrading. In recent years Indian Railways has laid claim to a financial turnaround, with (unaudited) operating profits expected to improve by 83.7%.[14] Credit for this achievement has been claimed by current Indian Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, who asserts that he made significant improvements in operating efficiency of goods traffic after he took over as Railway Minister in May 2004.[15]

The Rajdhani Express and Shatabadi Express are the fastest and most luxurious trains of Indian Railways, though they face new competition from air travel, as the trains travel only 80 km per hour (c.f. Fastest trains in India) and their food and service are only now being upgraded.[16] To modernize Indian Rail and to bring it up to par with the developed world, would require a massive investment of about US$100 billion.

Sixth Pay Commission has been constituted in India to review the pay structure of the Government employees and its recommendations are expected by the end of 2008 and based on its recommendations, the salaries of all Railways officers and staff are expected to be revised with retrospective effect (w.e.f. January 1, 2006). If previous Pay Commissions are taken as an indicator, this revision will not be less than 50% and it may have an impact on the Railways operating costs.

Plans to upgrade stations, coaches, tracks, services, and security are underway. Twenty-two of the largest stations are set for an overhaul by private contract. All meter gauge lines in the country will be converted to broad gauge. New LHB German coaches, manufactured in India, were scheduled to be introduced in 2007 on the daily run of the prestigious East Central Railway (ECR) Patna-New Delhi Radjhani Express. These coaches will enhance the safety and riding comfort of passengers, and in time will eventually replace thousands of old model coaches throughout Indian Railways. Three new manufacturing units will be set up to produce state-of-the-art locomotives and coaches.

Sanitation and the use of modern technology in that area has been a problem, but starting in 2007 chemically-treated 'green toilets', developed by IIT Kanpur, will be introduced throughout the system, trains and stations alike. This makeover is expected to take three years and cost billions. New rodent-control and cleanliness procedures are also working their way into the many zones of IR. Central Railway's 'Operation Saturday' is gradually making progress, station by station, in the cleanup of it's Mumbai division.

Base kitchens and food services across the system are also slated for a makeover, while rail ticket booking through ATMs on select trains and through cell(ular) phone SMS is being put in place. Channel music, TV screens showing the latest films, and optional menus from five-star hotels are being introduced on the Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express. A pilot project in commercial advertising on select trains is underway. More importantly, several IT initiatives are being phased in to better handle ticketing, freight, rolling stock (wagons), terminals, and rail traffic, including the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) for train tracking in real time. Upper management is also undergoing advanced training at prestigious institutions overseas to better handle change management in the system.


Photo Gallery

A view of the first train of the East Indian Railway in 1854.

Howrah Station - The busiest railway station of India[citation needed]

Delhi Metro, operational since 2002, is seen as a model for other metros. With growth in economy and technology, India is welcoming modernization.




See also
Fastest trains in India
Indian locomotives
Railways cricket team
Indian Railways Map

The Railways in India are the principal mode of transportation for freight and passengers. The railways have played an important role in the development of industries and agriculture. Indian railways consist of a vast network of 7, 031 stations spread over a route length of 63, 221 km with a fleet of 7,817 locomotives, 5,321 passenger service vehicles, 4, 904 other coaching vehicles and 228, 170 wagons as on 31st March 2004.

Indian Railway has the distinction of being one of the biggest and busiest rail networks in the world carrying more than sixteen million passengers on a daily basis. In terms of headcount again Indian Railway scores as it employs more than 1.6 million employees that is only second to the Chinese Army in terms of people employed.

Spanning nearly two centuries Indian Railways has been serving the country with utmost pride. It was only in 1851 when the first train ran in the country for hauling construction material in Roorkee and by 1853 the first passenger train service became operational running between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thane covering a distance of twenty one miles thus marking the formal birth of rail network in India.

The Indian Railways network binds the social, cultural and economical fabric of the country and covers the whole of country ranging from north to south and east to west removing the distance barrier for its people. The railway network of India has brought together the whole of country hence creating a feeling of unity among the Indians.



IR History: Early Days - I
Contents

The first trains in India
Chronology of railways in India, Part 1 (1832 - 1869)
The first trains in India
Q. When did the first train run in India?
The customary answer to this question is 3:35pm on April 16th, 1853, when a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bombay's Bori Bunder for Thane, with a 21-gun salute. It was hauled by three locomotives: Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib. The journey took an hour and fifteen minutes.

That, however, was just the first commercial passenger service in India. In fact, a steam loco, Thomason, had been used for hauling construction material in Roorkee for the Solani viaduct in 1851 (it began working there on 22nd December 1851, to be exact). The Solani viaduct construction was a part of the Ganges Canal project, started in 1845. The viaduct had 15 arches and spanned the 4km-wide Solani valley (about 145km north-east of New Delhi). Earth for the approach embankments was transported along light rail lines about 5 to 10 km long from Piran Kaliyar to Roorkee. Standard gauge wagons were used, built from parts brought over from England, and hauled by men and later horses. In late 1851, the locomotive Thomason (named for the engineer on the project) was assembled on the spot from parts transported from Calcutta. It hauled two wagons at a time, at a speed of about 6km/h. It did not last very long, and after about 9 months India's first steam locomotive died a spectacular death with a boiler explosion, reportedly to the delight of the construction workers who had viewed it more as a hindrance than help. Hughes' book states that this was a six-wheeled tank engine, probably a 2-2-2WT built by E. B. Wilson, and of standard gauge. Some details of the wagons and the use of the locomotive are in Sir Proby T Cautley's "Report on the Ganges Canal Works" (3 volumes, 1860).

"[The railway is] a triumph, to which, in comparison, all our victories in the East seem tame and commonplace. The opening of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway will be remembered by the natives of India when the battlefields of Plassey, Assaye, Meanee, and Goojerat have become landmarks of history." (The Overland Telegraph and Courier, April 1853)
The second locomotive to arrive in India was Falkland (named for a governor of Bombay), used by the contractors of the GIPR for shunting operations on the first line out of Bombay that was being built. It began work on February 23, 1852. Hughes' book suggests that this was also built by E. B. Wilson, and was probably a four-wheeled tank engine (0-4-0T?) with dummy crankshaft. It later became GIPR loco #9. A third locomotive, Vulcan, is said to have been used by the GIPR for material hauling and shunting duties in 1852 as well.

There were also eight more locos from Vulcan Foundry imported by GIPR in 1852 and 1853.

On November 18, 1852, a locomotive hauled some coaches on a trial run from Bori Bunder to Thana. This probably counts as the first "real" train to run in India.

Q. What was the Guarantee System? What were Guaranteed Railways?
In the 1840s, when the first proposals for railways in India were being debated in Great Britain, there was intense lobbying in support of these proposals by banks, traders, shipping companies, and others who had a strong interest in seeing railways be formed in India. These supporters prevailed upon the British Parliament to create the Guarantee System, whereby any company that constructed railways in India was guaranteed a certain rate of interest on its capital investment. This guarantee was honoured by the East India Company which then controlled large parts of India. The railways that were formed with such agreements governing them were called guaranteed railways. Typically, the guarantee was for a return of 5% annually, and the right for the railway company to pull out of the venture and get compensation from the government at any time.

Chronology of railways in India, Part 2 (1832 - 1865)
Note: This chronology is intended as a general overview for non-specialists to give them a feel for some of the interesting and complex events that shaped the development of railways in India. Many line openings are mentioned to give an idea of the geographic spread of railway services. Dates in most cases are those for when the completed lines were open to traffic; usually sections of the line may have been opened years earlier, and might even have supported revenue traffic in parts. Dates are often somewhat uncertain because of varying reports in different sources, or lack of documentation, hence in many cases they may be off by a couple of years. Anyone seeking reliable and specific information and more detail is strongly urged to consult the reference works listed in the guide to historical research and the section on books about IR history

1832
First proposal for a railway in India, in Madras. This remained a dream on paper.
1840s
Various proposals for railways in India, especially around Calcutta (EIR) and Bombay (GIPR).
1844
R MacDonald Stephenson's "Report upon the Practicability and Advantages of the Introduction of Railways into British India" is published.
1845
Survey work carried out for Bombay-Kalyan line and an extension up the Malay Ghat for proposed connections to Khandwa and Pune.
Madras Railway company is mooted.
East India Railway company is formed.
1848
Governor-General Lord Dalhousie while advocating railway construction in India also says, "No one can safely say whether railways in this country will earn or not".
1849
August 1: Great Indian Peninsular Railway incorporated by an Act of Parliament.
"Old Guarantee System" providing free land and guaranteed rates of return (5%) to the private English companies willing to work on building railways. Agreed upon in March, finalized on August 17.
1851
Locomotive Thomason is used for construction work in Roorkee, beginning on December 22.
Construction begins of an "experimental" section of track (Howrah-Rajmahal) for the proposed Calcutta-Delhi link via Mirzapur (EIR).
1852
Construction of a line out of Bombay begins, and a locomotive, Falkland, begins shunting operations on February 23. The line is ready by November, and on the 18th of November, a trial run of the Bombay-Thane trip (35 km) is held. (Some accounts suggest another locomotive, Vulcan might have also been used for shunting operations here.)
The Madras Guaranteed Railway Company is formed.
1853
On April 16th, at 3:35pm, the first train in India leaves Bombay for Thane (see above for details). Initial scheduled services consist of two trains each way between Bombay and Thane and later Bombay and Mahim via Dadar.
Madras Railway incorporated; work begins on Madras-Arcot line.
Lord Dalhousie's famous Railway Minute of April 20 lays down the policy that private enterprise would be allowed to build railways in India, but that their operation would be closely supervised by the government.
1854
On August 15th, the first passenger train in the eastern section is operated, from Howrah to Hoogly (24 miles). The section is soon extended to Pundooah.
By May, GIPR Bombay-Thane line is extended to Kalyan and is a double tracked line; inaugurated by Lord Elphinstone. Dapoorie viaduct is completed.
GIPR opens its first workshops at Byculla.
Stations are classified into 4 groups on some railways, according to traffic and the proportion of European and Indian passengers.
1855
BB&CI Railway incorporated, and begins work on a Surat-Baroda line.
Thane-Kalyan line extended to Vasind on the north-east.
February 3: EIR's "experimental" track for a Calcutta-Delhi route now consists of a Howrah to Raneegunje (Raniganj, collieries near Asansol) section of 121 miles.
August: EIR 21 and 22 ("Express" and "Fairy Queen") begin work. The Fairy Queen is still working!
1855-1856
HMS Goodwin carrying railway carriages for East Indian Railway Co. sinks. Another ship carrying a locomotive is mis-routed to Australia.
1856
On July 1st, the first train in the south was operated, from Royapuram / Veyasarapady (Madras) to Wallajah Road (Arcot) (approx. 100km) by the Madras Railway Company.
A combined Loco, Carriage and Wagon Workshop is set up by the Madras Guaranteed Rly. (later part of the MSMR) at Perambur, near Madras, later to become the Carriage and Wagon Workshops of SR (and the Loco Workshops at Perambur).
Sind (later Sind, Punjab and Delhi) Railway is formed, a guaranteed railway.
GIPR line extended to Khopoli via Palasdhari on the south-east. Regular services are now run from Mumbai to Vasind and from Mumbai to Khopoli. Stations opened at Dadar, Kurla, Titwala, Badlapur, and Neral.
1858
Eastern Bengal Railway and the Great Southern of India formed (guaranteed railways).
June 14: Khandala-Pune section of GIPR open to traffic. The 21km gap over the Bhore ghat (Karjat - Khandala) is crossed by palanquin, horses, or on foot. In some cases the passenger cars were also carried over each way.
1859
On March 3rd, the first train in the north was operated, from Allahabad to Kanpur (180km).
BBCI Railway obtains permission to extend its lines southwards from Surat, and opens its Grant Road terminus for its proposed line from Surat.
Eastern Bengal Railway begins construction on Calcutta-Kushtia line (175km).
Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway formed, with 5% guarantee from the government.
1855-1870
Several (about a dozen) railway companies are incorporated.
Early 1860s
Various early experiments with providing passenger amenities such as toilets, lights, etc. These naturally tended to be introduced first in the First Class carriages and only later in the lower classes of accommodation.
Sind and Punjab Railway is engaged in construction of a northward line from Karachi, a Lahore-Multan line, and a Lahore-Delhi line.
Kanpur-Etawah section opened.
1860
Bhusawal station set up by GIPR.
Vasind-Asangaon line opened.
1861
Madras Railway's trunk route from Madras extended to Beypur / Kadalundi (near Calicut). Work begins on a north-western branch out of Arakkonam.
Great Southern Railway of India completes 125km BG line between Nagapatnam and Trichinopoly. (? Some sources suggest the line was till Tanjore, and extended to Trichinopoly by March 1862.)
Churchgate station opened by BBCI Railway as its new terminus for Bombay.
January 1: GIPR's Kasara line opens (extended from Asangaon).
May 13: Karachi-Kotri section of the Scinde Rly. opens to public traffic, the first section in the region that would later become Pakistan.
1862
Feb. 8: Jamalpur Loco Works established.
Khanderao, the Gaekwar of Baroda, opens 8 miles of an NG railway line from Dabhoi towards Miyagam. Oxen were used as the motive power!
EIR's Delhi-Calcutta route progresses as far as the west bank of the Yamuna, via Mughalsarai. Sahibganj Loop.
Sealdah station commissioned.
Bhore ghat incline constructed, connecting Palasdhari to Khandala.
November: EBR's Calcutta-Kushtia line open for traffic.
Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway's 45km line from Calcutta to Port Canning is constructed.
Amritsar-Attari section completed on the route to Lahore.
The Indian Branch Railway Co. formed to construct short branches and feeder lines in northern India, with a 20-year subsidy but no guarantee.
The Indian Tramway Co. is formed for building short lines around Madras, also with a 20-year subsidy. This suffered losses later, was reorganized to become the Carnatic Railway and finally was taken over by the South Indian Railway.
Two-tier seating is introduced in Third Class (on EIR, GIPR, etc.) as a measure to alleviate overcrowding. A typical coach carries 50 passengers on the lower seats, and 70 on the upper level, nearly doubling the capacity of the already overcrowded third-class coaches. These were the first double-decker coaches to be used in India, and perhaps in the world (?).
Madras Railway extends its lines to Renigunta.
GSIR's Nagapatnam - Trichinopoly line opened to traffic.
1863
May 14: GIPR line from Bombay across the Bhore Ghat to Pune constructed.
BB&CI Railway completes Surat-Baroda-Ahmedabad line.
EIR completes Arrah bridge over the Sone.
Port Canning - Mutlah line opened by the Calcutta & South-Eastern R Railway.
Nalhati - Azimganj 4' gauge line built by the Indian Branch Railway Co.
First luxury carriage in India is built for the Governor of Bombay.
1864
August 1: First train into Delhi. Through trains run between Delhi and Calcutta; coaches are ferried on boats across the river at Allahabad.
Bombay-Surat line completed by BB&CI Railway.
Jolarpettai - Bangalore Cantt. branch added by Madras Railway; Bangalore Mail begins running.
First proposals for (horse-drawn) trams in Bombay.
1865
Sind and Punjab Railway's Multan-Lahore-Amritsar line is completed. Works begins on line from Delhi to Amritsar.
BB&CI completes Bombay-Ahmedabad rail link.
Yamuna bridge at Allahabad opened, allowing EIR trains to cross over without using ferries.
Arakkonam-Conjeevaram 3'6" line built by the Indian Tramways Co.
Kasara line extended to Igatpuri over the Thull (Thall) ghat.
GIPR timetables show 'local trains' separately for the first time. These are in the sections to Mahim and Kalyan.
Alambagh Workshops set up by the Oudh and Rohilkhand Rly. (formerly the Indian Branch Rly. Co.).
1866
Railway Branch formed in Central Public Works Department.
Delhi and Calcutta are linked directly by rail as the completion of the Yamuna bridge (road and rail) in Delhi allows the trains to reach what later became Delhi Junction. The 1 Dn / 2 Up Mail begins running -- this is the predecessor of the Howrah - Kalka Mail.
Bhusawal-Khandwa section opened.
W. Newman & Co. begins publishing the "Newman's Indian Bradshaw" for train timetables in India.
Indian Branch Rly. Co. begins construction of Lucknow-Kanpur light MG line.
1867
Virar - Bombay Backbay suburban service commences (BB&CI); one train in each direction each day.
Some Indian locos are sent overseas for the Abyssinian expedition.
GIPR branch line extended to Nagpur; Bhusawal-Badnera section opened.
EIR branch line extends from Allahabad to Jubbulpore (Jabalpur).
Lucknow-Kanpur line opened by the Indian Branch Railway Co.
1868
Madras Railway extends its network (with a new terminus at Royapuram) to Salem, and also finishes the Jolarpettai - Bangalore Cantonment branch.
November: Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway's line towards Amritsar from Delhi (Ghaziabad) is open for traffic up to Ambala.
Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway, having suffered extensive losses on their Sealdah-Canning line because of floods and other problems, decide to transfer the line to the government in return for capital costs, becoming the first railway to be taken over by the state.
GSIR's line reaches Erode, connecting to the Madras State Rly.
Charbagh workshops set up by the Oudh and Rohilkhand Rly
1869
Governor-General Lord Lawrence suggests that the Government of India itself undertake all future construction of railway lines. But GIPR's guarantees and leases are extended, and also those of the Bombay, Baroda, and Madras Railway Companies. Still, this year marks a turning point in government policy away from the guarantee system.
GIPR locals extended from Mahim to Bandra.
Jan. 25: Runaway train on the Bhore Ghat derails and crashes after failing to be stopped by a catch siding, and is made (in)famous by pictures in the Illustrated London News.
Total trackage in India is about 4000 miles
Geography : Railway Zones
Contents

Railway Zones
The history of Railway Zones
Major Routes, etc.
Zones
Q. How many regions or "zones" does IR have?
[7/02] Indian Railways is divided for administrative convenience into several regional railways. Until recently there were 9 zones, and this structure had not changed much for four decades. Recently, 7 new zones have been created, giving a total of 16.

(For the administrative structure of Indian Railways, please see the miscellaneous section.)

The nine older railway zones are:

Northern Railway (NR)
North Eastern Railway (NER)
Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR, sometimes NEFR)
Western Railway (WR)
Southern Railway (SR)
South Central Railway (SCR)
South Eastern Railway (SER)
Eastern Railway (ER)
Central Railway (CR)
The 7 new zones are:

South Western Railway (SWR)
North Western Railway (NWR)
West Central Railway (WCR)
North Central Railway (NCR)
South East Central Railway (SECR)
East Coast Railway (ECoR)
East Central Railway (ECR)
For their headquarters and constitution in terms of divisions please see below.

Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai), although it still comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board. It has been proposed [12/04] to merge it with IR because of its financial situation with high debt. At present [5/99] it consists of a single 760km route from Roha to Mangalore along the western coast of India (the Konkan region). The route is a single-line track (*), and currently not electrified. It has been designed for high-speed traffic (160 km/h). It is now [5/99] open to goods and passenger traffic. KR does not have divisions like the other IR zones, but it has two regions with headquarters at Ratnagiri and Karwar. The Ratnagiri region extends from Roha to Sawantwadi, while the Karwar region extends from Pernem to Thokur (the latter being where SR territory begins, a few stations north of Mangalore).

Note: Although KR is currently single-line, KR and SCR lines run parallel from Majorda to Madgaon, making that section a double-line.

The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by IR, but does not belong to any of the zones; it is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.

Q. What are the headquarters and divisions of the railway zones?
Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. The 9 older zones were split into 59 divisions in all. With the creation of new zones the divisions have also been reorganized, and new divisions have been created in 2002 (some came into effect in April 2003), bringing the total number of divisions to 67.

The divisional organization of the zonal railways is as follows:

Zone Headquarters Divisions
New zones that started in April 2003
East Coast Railway Bhubaneshwar Khurda Road, Waltair, and Sambalpur divisions of SER
South Western Railway Hubli Bangalore and Mysore divisions of SR, reorganized Hubli division of SCR, including Hospet-Toranagal.
(Earlier constituted to have Guntakal division of SCR as well.)
West Central Railway Jabalpur Jabalpur and Bhopal divisions of CR, reorganized Kota division of WR
North Central Railway Allahabad Reorganized divisions: Allahabad of NR, Jhansi of CR, and new Agra division
South East Central Railway Bilaspur Nagpur division and reorganized Bilaspur division of SER, new Raipur division
New zones that were created in 2002
North Western Railway Jaipur Jodhpur division and reorganized Bikaner division of NR, reorganized Jaipur and Ajmer divisions of WR
East Central Railway Hajipur Sonpur and Samastipur divisions of NER, Danapur, Mughalsarai, and Dhanbad divisions of ER.
(Was earlier constituted to have Katihar division of NFR as well.)
Old zones as they are after April 2003
Western Railway Mumbai Bhavnagar and Mumbai divisions, reorganized Ratlam, Rajkot and Vadodara divisions, new Ahmedabad division
Central Railway Mumbai Bhusawal and Nagpur divisions, reorganized Mumbai CST and Solapur divisions, new Pune division (including Pune-Kolhapur)
Eastern Railway Kolkata Howrah, Malda, Sealdah, and Asansol divisions
Southern Railway Chennai Chennai, Palghat, Tiruchirapalli, Thiruvananthapuram, and Madurai divisions (a Salem division has been proposed [7/06])
Northern Railway Delhi Ferozpur, Ambala, Lucknow and Moradabad divisions, reorganized Delhi division
North Eastern Railway Gorakhpur Lucknow and Varanasi divisions, reorganized Izzatnagar division
South Central Railway Secunderabad Reorganized Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal (including Bellary-Guntakal (MG) and Bellary-Rayadurg), and Vijayawada divisions, new Guntur and Nanded divisions.
South Eastern Railway Kolkata Kharagpur division, reorganized Adra and Chakradharpur divisions, new Ranchi division
Northeast Frontier Railway Guwahati Katihar, Lumding, Tinsukia divisions, reorganized Alipurduar division, new Rangiya division



Some trivia

Both Mumbai and Kolkata have the headquarters of two zonal railways each (WR/CR, and ER/SER respectively). However, Howrah in Kolkata is the head-station for both ER and SER, whereas Mumbai has two separate head-stations (Mumbai CSTM, formerly known as Victoria Terminus for CR, and Mumbai Central for WR).

New Delhi is close to the CR/NR border which is at Tughlakabad. Nagpur is a city with two divisional headquarters (one for CR, one for SER), a rare distinction it shares with Lucknow, which has headquarters for two different divisions in NR and NER.(Of course, except for Mumbai and Kolkata which are the headquarters of two zonal railways each as noted).

Q. How big are the various zones?
[6/99] In terms of route kilometers the sizes of the 9 older railway zons are as follows. Not updated for the new zonal structure!!

(Figures are approximate; although from 1999, they were little changed until the creation of the new zones. "BG/MG" indicates the route is served by both BG and MG.)

Railway Zone Total Kms. BG Kms. MG Kms. NG Kms.
Northern 11040 8920 2020 100
Western 10295 4600, 150 BG/NG 4455 890
South Central 7217 5955 1215 47
South Eastern 7420 6135 1280 40?
Southern 7040 4630 2125, 155 BG/MG 130
Central 7265 6240 1025 —
North Eastern 5143 2300 2820 23
Eastern 4320 4185 135 —
North East Frontier 3820 1370 2230, 131 BG/MG 80, 8 MG/NG



The total route kilometerage of IR is around 63,000 km.

History of the Railway Zones
Q. What is the history behind the 7 new zones created?
In 1984, the Railway Reform Committee had proposed the creation of four new zones to cope with the growth of freight traffic across the country and to rationalize the traffic handling of IR. This proposal went nowhere. In the 1990s IR had been considering setting up more zones, ostensibly to improve administrative and operational efficiency. However, the final proposals which came out for new zones appear to have been motivated by politics as much as technical considerations of efficiency.

Six zones (East Coast Rly., East Central Rly., North Central Rly., North Western Rly., South Western Rly., and West Central Rly.) were proposed and approved in principle in July 1996 during the tenure of Ram Vilas Paswan as Railway Minister. Raipur was proposed as the headquarters of the East Coast Railway, but eventually Bhubaneshwar was settled upon.

The South West Railway was originally to have been based at Bangalore, but later [3/00] it was decided to make Hubli its headquarters (this involved a fair amount of agitation and political action in Hubli as well). The South East Central Rly. headquartered at Bilaspur was proposed in 1998 and approved in principle by the government in 1999.

Until mid-2002 not much had been done for these new zones yet beyond some contracts for office space and the appointment of some officers. In fact, in May 2000 the government had cancelled these staff appointments and there was talk of disbanding whatever little administrative structure had been put in place for these new zones. In March 2002, the South Western Zone was 'inagurated' with some publicity, although there was no office space for the zone at Hubli; some staff at Bangalore were assigned to the new zone with, apparently, little to do.

Nothing really definitive was done about these new zones until June 2002, when the Railway Ministry announced that official notifications had been issued for the creation of two new zones: East Central and North Western. Some operational and administrative work for these officially began in October 2002. In July 2002, five more zones were officially created: East Coast, North Central, South Western, West Central, and South East Central.

[4/03] These new zones have now come into effect and have begun functioning in earnest. The East Central and North Western zones have been reorganized somewhat again, as indicated below.

From late 2002, there have been reports of wagons and coaches being spotted with new zonal markings for several of the new zones. Train numbers still [5/03] follow the old scheme with the numeric identifiers for the 9 older zones.

Until April 2003, the older 9 zones were organized as shown here:

Zone Headquarters Divisions
Northern Railway Delhi Ambala, Delhi, Ferozpur, Moradabad, Lucknow, Allahabad, Bikaner, Jodhpur
Western Railway Mumbai Central Mumbai Central, Vadodara, Ratlam, Kota, Ajmer, Jaipur, Rajkot, Bhavnagar
Southern Railway Chennai (Chennai Central) Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Palghat, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mysore
South Central Railway Secunderabad Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Hubli, Guntakal
South Eastern Railway Kolkata (Howrah) Kharagpur, Chakradharpur, Bilaspur, Waltair, Adra, Khurda Road, Sambhalpur, Nagpur
Eastern Railway Kolkata (Howrah) Howrah, Sealdah, Danapur, Dhanbad, Malda, Asansol, Mughalsarai
Central Railway Mumbai (Mumbai CST) Mumbai, Bhusaval, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Jhansi, Solapur, Nagpur
North Eastern Railway Gorakhpur Sonepur, Samastipur, Lucknow, Izzatnagar, Varanasi
Northeast Frontier Railway Maligaon (Guwahati) Katihar, Tinsukia, Alipurduar, Lumding



[4/03] The eight new divisions are: Rangiya (Assam), Raipur (Chhatisgarh), Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Pune and Nanded (Maharashtra), Agra (Uttar Pradesh) and Guntur (Andhra Pradesh).

The new railway divisions have jurisdictions as indicated below. ('A->B' means that the route from 'A' to 'B' belongs to the division, but station 'B' itself does not come under the division's jurisdiction.) A few adjustments also have occurred recently in the older divisions, as shown in this table.

Division Jurisdiction Route km
Nanded Manmad-Mudkhed-Adilabad, Khandwa-Purna, Adilabad-Pimpalkutti (ex Hyderabad) 937
Agra Agra->Palwal (133km), Palwal->Tughlakabad (40km) (both ex Jhansi), Agra->Bayana (ex Kota), Agra->Tundla (ex Allahabad), Agra->Bandikui, Mathura->Alwar (ex Jaipur), Mathura-Achnera, Mathura-Vrindavan (ex Izzatnagar) 589(?)
Guntur Krishna Canal - Guntur, Guntur-Tenali, Guntur-Macherla, Guntur-Donakonda, Miryalaguda-Nadikude (ex Vijayawada), Donakonda-Nandyal (137km) (ex Guntakal), Pagidipalli-Miryalaguda (ex Secunderabad) 588
Raipur Bilaspur-Durg, Durg-Dallirajhara, Railpur-Dhamtari, Abhanpur-Rajim, Urkura-Raipur BH-Raipur Jn.-Sarona (ex Bilaspur), Dallirajhara-Jagdalpur (new) 580
Ranchi Chandil-Muri, Kita-Gangaghat, Muri-Kita, Gangaghat-Ranchi, Ranchi-Hatia, Muri->Barkakhana, Muri->Kotshila, Ranchi-Lohardaga (ex Adra), Hatia-Purnapani->Bondamunda (ex Chakradharpur) 483
Pune Pune->Lonavala (ex Mumbai/CR), Pune-Miraj-Kolhapur (ex Hubli), Pune-Baramati (excluding Daund) (ex Solapur) 510
Rangiya Rangiya-Murkongselek, New Bongaigaon - Rangiya - Kamakya, Baliapara-Bhalukpong, Rangapara-Tezpore, New Bongaigaon - Jogighopaj - Kamakhya (ex Alipurduar) 825
Ahmedabad Vatva-Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad-Viramgam, Viramgam - Maliya Miyana, Ahmedabad-Khodiyar, Jhund-Khargoda, Maliya Miyana - Samakhiali, Chandlodiya-Khodiyar-Gandhinagar (ex Vadodara), Mahesana-Palanpur, Viramgam-Mahesana, Khodiyar-Mahesana, Ahmedabad-Himmatnagar-Khedbrahma, Kalol-Ambliyasan, Mahesana-Tarangahill, Kalol-Katosan-Ranuj, Mahesana-Patan, Sabarmati-Asarva bypass chord (ex Rajkot), Palanpur-Samakhiali, Samakhiali-Gandhidham, Gandhidham-Bhuj, Gandhidham - Kandla Port, Bhuj-Naliya (ex Ajmer) 1410
Other adjustments among the older divisions.
Jhansi Manikpur-Naini (91km, ex Jabalpur Division) 1461
Hubli Hospet-Bellary (65km), Toranagallu-Ranjitpura (23km), Guntakal-Bellary MG (49km) (all of these are ex Guntakal division) 1076



Other divisional adjustments that are slated to happen in 2003:

Palwal-Tughlakabad moves from Jhansi to Delhi (?)
Nandyal-Guntakal moves from Guntakal to Hyderabad
Hospet->Toranagallu moves from Guntakal to Hubli
Guntakal-Bellary (MG) and Bellary-Rayadurg move from Hubli to Guntakal (in the case of Guntakal - Bellary MG, this is a return to its original home division!)
Bhiwani-Rohtak moves from Delhi to Bikaner
Adarsh Nagar - Chittorgarh moves from Ratlam to Ajmer
Looking ahead, it is expected that the Palghat division of SR will be split in two, with a smaller Palghat division and a new Erode or Salem division. The new Palghat division is expected to have the section from Mangalore Outer to Coimbatore and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, whereas Mangalore itself will be transferred to SWR when the Hassan-Mangalore line. A new division from Coimbatore Outer to Jolarpettai is expected to be created.

Q. How were the 9 older zones created out of the former independent railway networks?
Around 1950, legislation was passed allowing the central government to take over many of the independent railway systems that were in operation.

In 1951, the following zones were created:

SR — April 14: From Madras & Southern Mahratta Rly., South Indian Rly., and Mysore State Rly. (about 9660 km).
CR — Nov. 5: From the GIPR, the Nizam's State Rly., and the Scindia and Dholpur Rly. (about 8690 km).
WR — Nov. 5: From the BB&CI Rly., the Saurashtra, the Rajasthan, the Jaipur, and the Cutch Rlys. (about 9120 km).
In 1952, the following zones were created:

NR — April 14: From the Jodhpur Rly., Bikaner Rly., three divisions of the East Indian Rly. north-west of Mughalsarai, and the Eastern Punjab Rly. (about 9670 km).
ER — April 14: From the rest of the East Indian Rly. (east of Mughalsarai) and the Bengal Nagpur Rly. (about 9120 km).
NER — April 14: From the Oudh-Tirhut Rly., the Assam Rly., and the Kanpur-Achnera section of the BB&CI Rly. (about 7660 km).
In 1955, the South-Eastern Railway is carved out of ER:

SER — August 1: ER retains three divisions of the old East Indian Rly. and the Sealdah division of the old Bengal-Assam Rly. (about 3740km); the rest becomes SER (about 5380km).
In 1958, the Northeast Frontier Railway was carved out of NER:

NFR — Jan. 15: the former Assam Rly. lines in the Pandu region are split off from NER to become the NFR (about 3730km).
In 1966, South-Central Rly. was carved out of SR:

SCR — Oct. 2: The former Nizam's State Rly. network (by then the Secunderabad and Solapur divisions of SR) and part of the former Madras & Southern Mahratta Rly. (by then the Vijayawada and Hubli divisions) are split off from SR to become the South-Central Rly. (about 6070km).
Adjustments: Later in 1977, Guntakal division from SR was merged into SCR, and the Solapur division transferred back to CR. There have been other minor adjustments; e.g., in 1988 Ruthiyai-Bina was transferred from WR to CR. Akola-Purna was transferred from CR to SCR in the late 1970s. Malda was moved from NFR and made part of ER in the early 1980s. In 1979, the Shoranur-Cochin section was transferred from the Palghat division (originally Olavakkot -- included Cochin - Shoranur and Jolarpettai - Shoranur) to the newly formed Trivandrum division. Minor adjustments including transfers of portions of various routes from one division to another within a zone are quite common.

Major Routes
Major connecting routes
This section has been removed. Instead, please see the IR network maps for route information.

The golden quadrilateral consists of the routes connecting the four big metropolises (New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata) in a quadrilateral along with its diagonals. These are the most important routes in terms of passenger and freight volume. They constitute about 16% of the total network in terms of route length, but carry over 50% of the total freight and 47% of the total passenger traffic.

The dedicated freight corridor (DFC) is a proposed set of routes to carry freight exclusively.

Famous Trains
Contents

Tourist Trains
Hill Railways
Rajdhani Expresses
Shatabdi Expresses
Other Famous Trains
Tourist Trains
Palace On Wheels
[3/99] This is a tourist train operated by IR. It covers the route Delhi - Jaipur - Chittorgarh/Udaipur - Sawai Madhopur - Jaisalmer - Jodhpur - Bharatpur/Agra - Delhi, including visits to historical sites, palaces, wildlife sanctuaries, etc. along the way, taking about 8 days in all. Fares range from $425 per person per day for single occupancy, going down with double ($300) or triple occupancy ($250).

The Palace On Wheels initially ran on MG, with coaches dating back to 1917. After the original rake was deemed unsuitable for passenger service, a new MG rake was brought into use, with an unusual all-white (or ivory) livery. When the Palace on Wheels was converted to a broad-gauge train in 1992, this rake was repainted blue and used for the Royal Orient (see below).

Royal Orient
[3/99] The Royal Orient was started as a joint effort between the state of Gujarat and WR some time in 1994-95. The itinerary is Chittorgarh - Udaipur - Palitana - Somnath - Diu - Ahmedpur - Mandvi - Sasangir National Park - Junagarh - Ahmedabad - Jaipur - Delhi, taking 7 days. Fares range from $350 per person per day going down with double occupancy ($200) and triple occupancy ($175).

The rake used was the replacement rake for the ageing Palace on Wheels rolling stock (which ran the POW service from 1992 to about 1994, when the BG rake for POW was introduced). This new ICF-built replacement rake was rendered useless until Gujarat Tourism and WR decided to run it as the Royal Orient. The livery was changed to a blue scheme. It originates from Delhi Cantt MG station and traverses a fair part of Rajasthan and Gujarat. The Royal Orient rake is maintained at the WR workshops at Ajmer.

Fairy Queen
[3/99] One of the oldest working steam locomotives in the world (possibly the oldest still working regularly), and certainly the oldest working loco in India, the Fairy Queen is a 2-2-2WT BG loco built in 1855 by Kitson, Thompson, & Hewitson, (Leeds, UK) formerly loco No. 22 of the East Indian Railway. It used to work on the Howrah-Raniganj line and later in Bihar. IR now uses it to haul a two-car tourist train which has a two-day itinerary from Delhi to Alwar (Rajasthan) and back, including a trip to a tiger sanctuary. (See the section on steam locos for more information on old locos.)

The Kangra Queen
The Kangra Queen is a tourist train that goes through the scenic Kangra Valley route, from Pathankot to Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. It covers 128km in 4.5 hours (one train each way everyday).

The Desert Queen
The Desert Queen is a tourist train announced in August 2000, which is supposed to cover the Nawalgarh - Fatehpur - Pidawa - Mukungarh - Shekhawat route in Rajasthan, in 3 days and 3 nights. Price to be US $485 per night.

The Great Indian Rover
The Great Indian Rover was a tourist train introduced on Feb. 10, 1983, and aimed at tourists who wished to visit places of Buddhist interest. It had various itineraries of 3 to 7 days from Calcutta, including stops at Gorakhpur (for Lumbini), Gaya, Patna, Sarnath, etc., and going to Puri, Varanasi, and (for the 7-day one-way itinerary) ending at New Delhi. Individual saloon cars could be booked for the journey. It stopped running some time in the late 1980s, and was the forerunner to the present-day Buddhist special 'Buddha Parikrama' launched in 1998 (1999?).

Other tourist trains
Recently [2002-2003] various new luxury tourist trains have been proposed or announced by IR or various state governments and their tourism departments. Most of them are modelled on the Palace on Wheels and Royal Orient, and generally aimed at the luxury tourism market.

One of these is the Deccan Odyssey. Beginning the journey from Mumbai, the train will travel to Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Goa, Pune, Aurangabad , Ajanta-Ellora, Nashik and then back to Mumbai, and is a venture of the Maharashtra Government and the Taj Group. In addition to being a train that touches tourist spots, this really aims to be a complete 5-star hotel on wheels, with two restaurants and a bar, a sauna, business centre and other such amenities on board. It has recently [1/04] completed trials and is expected to begin running on Jan. 15, 2004.

The Karnataka government is also considering introducing a luxury tourist train. This train, to run year-round, is expected to have a dedicated 18-coach rake with 11 air-conditioned salon cars, one air-conditioned bar car, a conference car, an air-conditioned restaurant car, a staff car, and two power cars (all to be built by the ICF).

Hill Railways
Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
[3/99] The Darjeeling railway was conceived by Franklin Prestage, the Agent or General Manager of the Eastern Bengal State Railway. Tea estates had opened in the Darjeeling area in the 1870s, and the newly opened Calcutta-Siliguri line saw considerable traffic. Prestage proposed in 1878 to build a 2' NG railway line on the Hill Cart Road. The original line of the DHR was constructed between 1879 and 1885 and was originally named the Darjeeling Steam Tramway Co. The DHR was actually opened to traffic in 1881, when it became the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Co. The ruling gradient is 1:16, and the sharpest curve is of radius 18m. There are five zig-zags (switchbacks) and four full loops, of which two are double spirals. Services are operated today with several ancient steam locos kept alive by the Tindharia Works. The working locos date from as far back as 1899 and 1904; the newest ones are from 1925. These are the famous 'B' class locos developed Sharp, Stewart of Manchester, UK, in 1889. They are 0-4-0 saddle tank locos, and each loco weighs 14 tons, with 26" coupled wheels and 11"x14" cylinders. Originally, the locos hauled four coaches (24' bogie stock) and a four-wheeler van. Thirty four were built in all. The ones that survive today use parts cannibalized from locos no longer in service. Of the locos that are no longer in operation, a few have been preserved. See the DHR loco list. The DHR also used a Beyer-Garratt articulated loco, bought in 1911 but not used much. A couple of narrow-gauge diesel locos have been pressed into service on the DHR in recent years.

The crew for the trains in the old days generally consisted of a driver, a fireman, a coal breaker, a coal passer, and two sanders who stood at the front of the engine. Cargo hauled included rice and tea, other mixed freight, and passengers from Siliguri (500' altitude) to Ghum (7407'), and finally to Darjeeling (7000') over 51 miles (82km). The DHR locos typically racked up 1200 to 1300 miles in each month of service.

Originally, the DHR had two branches. The Kishanganj branch, running west-south-west of Siliguri, was 107km long and was converted to MG and connected to the NER system at Barsoi during the construction of the Assam Rail Link in 1948. The Kishanganj branch used 'A' class Pacifics, none of which survive today. The other branch was the Kalimpong Road (Gelkhola) branch, following the Teesta valley, 36km long, which was closed in 1950 following floods that swept away the trackbeds.

Currently, it operates three routes

Kurseong - Darjeeling - Kurseong (daily)
New Jalpaiguri - Darjeeling - New Jalpaiguri (daily)
New Jalpaiguri - Silliguri Jn. - New Jalpaiguri (??)
Shorter excursions between Ghum and Darjeeling are run often, known as the 'Joy Train' services and intended for tourists. These are always steam-hauled, while the other services are sometimes steam-hauled and sometimes diesel-hauled these days.

See the steam section and also DHR loco lists for some more information on DHR locos. See the section on organizations for some more information on groups interested in the DHR. Lists of locomotives and their current dispositions, detailed maps, etc. are available from some of them.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (or the Ooty Rack Railway)
[2/99] The meter-gauge line from Mettupalaiyam to Conoor (the Ooty line) is a rack railway. It is not connected to other meter-gauge lines. The normal MG locos and rolling-stock cannot run on this line because of the sharp curves, so it has special equipment. This is the only example of a rack railway in India.

The Mettupalayam - Coonoor line was constructed in 1897 and opened in 1899 (it was actually opened in August 1898 but then closed after track damage from heavy rain). Four 2-4-0T Beyer-Peacock locomotives were used initially. The extension from Coonoor to Ootacamund was built in 1908. Niklaus Riggenbach (Switzerland) and J L L Morant (Royal Engineers, UK) were the engineers who conceived of and designed the line.

The "X" class locos were built by SLM (Winterthur, Switzerland) a long time back, and it has been extremely difficult to keep the line running because of the lack of spare parts and impossibility of obtaining replacements. There are now some plans to commission new locos based on modified designs of the X class.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway ascends to the highest point on meter-gauge in India. Mettupalaiyam is at 310m (1071'). The terminus, Ootacamund (Ooty) is at 2204m (7228'), but the previous station, Fernhill, is at 2218m (7275'). The actual summit occurs just before Fernhill and is at 2226m (7300').

Kateri Road was a station (now closed) between Runnymede and Coonoor which was very interesting technically, as the gradient there was so steep that the rack could not have any gaps anywhere. Thus even the points had racks. This station was closed (and the rack points removed) in 1982 when the gradient was eased.

"Toy trains" : The NG hill trains
Other than the DHR and Ooty railways, there are other narrow gauge trains run by IR, popularly (and perhaps rather too dismissively) known as "toy trains". These include the Kalka - Shimla trains (the Shivalik Deluxe train and the Shivalik Palace tourist coach) which go through some gorgeous hill scenery. The Shivalik Palace Tourist coach provides private accommodations for 6 persons.

The Kalka-Shimla route is 96km long with 102 tunnels (although because of a misnumbering -- tunnel #46 is not used -- the count is often given as 103), 869 bridges, and 919 curves. Barog tunnel is the longest at 1,144m. The entire route was actually built to 2' gauge and then regauged to 2'6". Petrol railcars ran on this route in 1911.

Another interesting 2'NG section is the Neral-Matheran line (the 'Matheran Light Railway' or MLR) which is accessible from the main Mumbai-Pune section. The NG passenger trains run only during daylight hours. Matheran is a hill station. The line was built by Abdul Hussain, son of a renowned businessman Sir Adamjee Peerbhoy of Bombay, who visited Matheran often and wanted to build a railway to make it easier to get there. Hussain's plans for the railway were formulated in 1900 and construction started in 1904. The line was open to traffic by 1907. Neral, the starting point, is about midway between Mumbai and Pune. The 2' NG line runs parallel to the BG line to the west of Hardal Hill and then turns east to ascend to Matheran. The rail alignment and the roadway meet near Jumappati and meet again after a brief separation, at Bhekra Khud. Following a small level stretch, there is a sharp ascent just before Mount Barry. A large horseshoe embankment was built to avoid a reversing station here. The line runs for a mile or so northwards around this and then turns around to take a tunnel through -- 'One Kiss Tunnel', a reference to how short it is! Two more zig-zags through deep cuttings remain before Panorama Point is reached, and then the line bends back to Simpson's Tank and terminates at Matheran. In all, the line is about 20km long. Originally, the tracks were laid with 30lb rails but now has 42lb rails. Ruling gradient is 1:20 and speeds are limited to 20km/h. The line was generally closed in the monsoons because of the danger of landslides. Starting in the 1980s (1982?), the line was kept open often even in the rainy season. On July 26, 2005, landslides following heavy rain washed away large parts of the track and destroyed 37 bridges on the line, and services were suspended for a long time. Services partially resumed on March 5, 2007 following the relaying of tracks and reconstruction of bridges from Neral to Jummapatti, with more work remaining to be done on the last leg to Matheran. Steam: A 'B' class loco #794 from the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway has been transferred to the Neral-Matheran line to test the feasibility of steam excursions. An MLR loco, #741 (Orenstein and Koppel #1767, built 1905) is preserved at Matheran station. The line observed its centenary on April 15th, 2007.

Rajdhanis
Rajdhani trains are fast passenger trains connecting various cities to the New Delhi area (the capital; "Rajdhani" means a capital city in Hindi). They are generally given operational priority as they are "prestige" trains. The early Rajdhanis all had AC chair-car accommodations; however, now they all have AC sleeper accommodations.

One peculiar feature of the Rajdhanis used to be that ticketing could only be done from the starting station or to the terminating station; it was not possible to buy a ticket for a journey between two intermediate points. However this rule no longer holds now.

Q. Which was the first Rajdhani and when was it introduced?
The first Rajdhani was introduced between Howrah and New Delhi on March 1, 1969. It was initially a bi-weekly 8 car train - Brake/Luggage/Generator, AC I, AC Pantry, AC Chair, AC Chair, AC Chair, AC Chair, Brake/Luggage/Generator - hauled by a single WDM4. The booked speed for the route was 115 km/h and the maximum permissible speed was 120 km/h. Later it ran 5 days a week, and also had a mid-train generator car. Still later it became a daily train, with two runs (Tuesday and Friday) going via Patna. After 1993, the train reverted to having just two generator cars at either end, although some reporters say they have seen it with the mid-train generator car on occasion since then.

Initially, the Rajdhani covered the 1441km route in 17 hours and 20 minutes but this was later speeded up to 16 hours 35 minutes (from Delhi) and 16 hours 55 minutes (return). The New Delhi - Kanpur time was 268 minutes, and the Mughalsarai to Dhanbad time was 240 minutes, which compare very favourably with the timings of fast trains today!

The ticket issued for the journey was Rs. 280 for AC sleeper and Rs. 90 for AC Chair car. The train offered a true express service between New Delhi and Howrah with no booking of passengers for any station enroute. It ran on the Grand Chord with intermediate halts were restricted to Kanpur Central, Mughalsarai and Gomoh, for service requirements like refilling of overhead water tanks and replenishing of catering stores.

Two years later (July 1971), Kanpur Central was converted to a passenger halt when ten seats in the AC Chair car were set apart for Kanpur residents. On Nov. 1971, the train's speed was increased to 120/130 booked/max. resulting in a reduction of 30/45 minutes in the Up/Dn journey times. In a few years, Mughalsarai and Dhanbad became passenger halts and the Gomoh halt was removed.

It continued to be hauled by a WDM-4 even after the complete electrification of the Howrah - N. Delhi route (via the Grand Chord). These WDM-4s had a superior bogie design which meant that the train could accelerate faster and brake at higher speeds. They were also rated at 130 km/h, a little above the 120 km/h of the WAM-4 locos. Mughalsarai had workshop facilities to handle the maintenance of these locos.; this explained the 12-minute halt there (sometimes the loco was changed there as well).

IR introduced the higher speed WAP-1 AC electric locomotive some time in 1983, which could haul an 18 coach Rajdhani at a max. speed of 120 km/h. A single Ghaziabad WAP-1 usually hauled the train through the late 1980s, although occasionally twin WAP-1 locos were also used. Later WAP-2's were occasionally used. In 1986 it changed to using air-braked stock and was allocated the first air-braked WAP-1 locos, from Ghaziabad shed. After 1985 WAG-5 locos were sometimes used if the allocated WAP-1 had a problem, since WAG-5's were among the few locos then that had air train brakes. Since then various WAP models have been used to haul Rajdhanis. It was also the first train to be hauled by a WAP-5 loco. In the early days of the WAP-5 locos, the train was hauled by WAP-1 locos on Tuesdays and Fridays (when it went through Patna) and dual WDM-2 locos hauled it from Mughalsarai onwards. On occasion, even until recently, it was hauled by Kanpur or Howrah WAP-4 locos. It is now also occasionally hauled by a WAP-7 from Ghaziabad.

Q. What about the Bombay Rajdhani?
The Bombay Rajdhani was introduced on May 17, 1972 with a maximum speed of 120 km/h and booked speed of 115 km/h. It covered the 1384km route in about 19 hours. It was a biweekly train. The cost was Rs. 343 by AC sleeper and Rs. 114 by AC Chair car. Composition - 1 AC sleeper with 18 berths, 4 AC chair cars with 71 seats each, 1 pantry-cum-chair car with 10 seats, 2 luggage-cum-power cars. An additional AC Chair car with 71 seats ran as and when traffic justified it. There was no booking of passengers for stations enroute.

The Bombay - New Delhi Rajdhani was initially hauled by a single specially regeared Ratlam WDM-2 loco. There were operational halts at Vadodara, Ratlam, Gangapur City and Mathura, for watering, engine changing, change of crew, issue of caution orders, etc. A few years later, Vadodara and Ratlam became passenger halts, Gangapur City still existed as a service halt and Mathura had been removed.

In 1984, the train became double-headed (WDM-2's) with 18 air-braked coaches (the first long-distance train to get air-braked stock for regular operations). At the time electric traction was not continuous all the way between New Delhi and Bombay, and most electric locos were not fitted with air brakes, hence the choice of the twin WDM-2 locos. Further, the change to DC traction after Virar towards Bombay would have necessitated a change of locos in any case, lengthening the trip time. Except for a couple of patches in the Nagda-Kota section, the entire Bombay-New Delhi section was double-tracked - so journey time had been cut down to about 17-1/2 hours. By the late 1980s, a WAP-1 (from Vadodara shed) would take over in the Ratlam - New Delhi section (or sometimes from Vadodara onwards), thus increasing the speed to 120/130 booked/max. in this section. Later WAP-3 and other WAP series locos were used.

The WAP locos couldn't run all the way to Bombay because of the change of traction at Virar, and the diesel shed at Ratlam was conveniently situated to handle the WDM-2's required for that run of the Rajdhani. With the WAP locos hauling the train for part of the way, the running time was brought down to about 16-1/2 hrs. Kota was included as a passenger halt and Gangapur City was removed from the list.

With the introduction of the high-speed dual-voltage (AC/DC) WCAM-2P locos (which were also air-braked) in 1993-94, the Rajdhani could electric hauled all the way. A WCAM-2P hauled it on the Mumbai Central - Vadodara section, and a WAP series loco hauled it for the rest of the route to New Delhi.

On December 15th 2003, a new LHB rake was assigned to the Mumbai Rajdhani. The new coaches incorporate advanced features such as anti-skid disc brakes, a modular pantry, a food warmer/cooler, and anti-telescopic and anti-climbing features. The new coaches have higher passenger-carrying capacity and are designed for a higher speed rating of 140kmh.

How many Rajdhanis are there now?
More than a dozen. Please see the list of train names which lists the Rajdhanis and other named trains.

Shatabdis
Q. When were Shatabdis introduced? Which was the first one?
The Shatabdi Express trains are fast inter-city express trains which aim to provide daytime service noticeably faster than the other "superfast" trains over medium distances, generally providing for a same-day return (leave early in the morning, and return late at night). They are aimed primarily at businessmen and tourists. The Shatabdis have airconditioned rakes and two classes of accommodation: executive chair car and ordinary chair car. The price of meals and refreshments is included in the fare.

"Shatabdi" indicates a century in Hindi; the service was started to commemorate the Nehru centenary in 1989. The first Shatabdi between New Delhi and Jhansi was flagged off in July 1988. In 1989 it was extended to Bhopal. In 1989 another Shatabdi was started between New Delhi and Kanpur, and later extended to Lucknow.

The Bhopal Shatabdi is booked to run at a speed of 140km/h between New Delhi and Agra, and at 130km/h between Agra and Bhopal, making it the fastest train in the country. It was also the first train to cover the New Delhi - Agra section in under two hours, taking 115 minutes, handily beating the Taj Exp. which was the previous speed record holder on that section (it takes around 2.5 hours for the same stretch).

Later Shatabdis have in general not been as fast as the Bhopal Shatabdi, but they do normally achieve speeds of 120-130km/h. Some Shatabdis (including the Bhopal one) use WAP3 locos, others use WAP1's and also WDM2's in unlectrified sections. One of the newer Shatabdis, the Swarna Shatabdi Exp. between Amritsar and New Delhi has a dedicated rake with several new features. The new [5/01] fast train between New Delhi and Lucknow with Alstom-LHB coaches capable of running at 160km/h is also called a Swarna Shatabdi Express.

Q. How many Shatabdis are there now?
Quite a few. See the list of train names which lists these and other named trains.

Other Famous Trains
The Grand Trunk Express
This train, affectionately known as the 'GT' started running in 1929 just after the construction of the Kazipet-Balharshah section, which was the last link in the Delhi-Madras route. Initially it ran from Peshawar to Mangalore and took about 104 hours, one of the longest train routes. Later this service was changed to Lahore-Mettupalaiyam. In 1930 it reached its present status while running between Delhi and Madras.

As a prestigious train, it was one of the few to have the early methods of air cooling by ice blocks. It also carried a parcel van for urgent consignments. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the train used to run with a completely air-conditioned rake (First AC and AC Chair Car) on two days of the week, and with its usual rake on other days, and hence was sometimes known as the AC/GT Express. The train had a 21-coach rake in the 1980s, later extended to 22 and finally 24 coaches. Its first-class coaches were of the corridor type with extra large windows. The GT's coaches (along with those of other premier trains in the 1970s) also had noticeably better suspension as well.

Frontier Mail
The Frontier Mail was flagged off on Sep. 1, 1928, from Colaba Terminus, the main station on the BB&CI (later Western Railway). It was a replacement for the earlier Mumbai-Peshawar Mail. In winter (Sep. - Dec.), the Frontier Mail started from Ballard Pier (Mole Station) to connect with P&O steamships; this is the portion referred to as the "Duplicate" section of the Frontier Mail in old railway schedules and articles.

Leaving from Mole Station the train ran for a short while on tracks of the Bombay Port Railway and the GIPR via Bandra Jn. finally reaching its home tracks of the BB&CI Railway. For the rest of the year the train terminated at Colaba, but a separate train ran to Ballard Pier for the steamer connection. There were also times when the train ran this extra bit on some days of the week alternating with the normal route.

The train's route took it through Baroda, Ratlam, Mathura, Delhi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and finally to Peshawar. (The section beyond Delhi was run by the North Western Railway as train No. 3.) Peshawar was close to the frontier of British India in those days, hence the name of the train. It used to be the fastest long-distance train in the subcontinent.

Originally the BB&CI introduced it to rival the Punjab Limited of the GIPR, which also went from Bombay to Peshawar. The train had a reputation for being unusually punctual. Originally the rake had 5 coaches and a luxury dining car cum lounge car. As a prestige train of the BB&CI, the train offered plush conveniences on board, and the passengers had access to luxurious retiring rooms at stations along the way. It had air-cooled cars (using ice blocks) from about 1934.

After Independence, it went only up to Amritsar, via Delhi, from Bombay. The train has now [1996] been renamed "Golden Temple Mail".

Punjab Mail
The Punjab Mail runs between Bombay and Firozpur. This was the GIPR train; there was another train of the same name that ran for a while between Calcutta and Delhi on the East Indian Railway. The Punjab Mail made its debut on 1st June 1912. Like the later Frontier Mail, the Punjab Mail too used to connect with the P&O steamships on fixed mail days and would steam off from the Mole Station; on other days it departed from Bombay's Victoria Terminus.

For a brief period, an extended service called The Punjab Limited operated between Bombay VT and Peshawar, on the GIPR and NWR; this was a rival to the Frontier Mail, but does not seem to have lasted as a service for long. (There is some doubt whether the Punjab Limited was an entirely separate special service or a special extension of the Punjab Mail.) The Punjab Mail was among the fastest trains in pre-Independence India (probably the fastest one at various times). The train had air-cooled cars in 1945.

It was hauled by a variety of locos. XC locos were used after the rake was extended by the addition of third-class cars in the 1930s. In 1929-1930 EA/1 electric locos were used experimentally. The train later ran electric-hauled until Manmad, where a WP took over. From 1968 the train was diesel-hauled until Jhansi and by 1976 or so it became diesel-hauled all the way. A WCAM-1 loco was used a few times in an attempt to provide continuous haulage without locomotive changes, in the 1970s. Since then, and continuing today, it is hauled by a DC locomotive until Igatpuri and an AC locomotive thereafter towards Delhi and Firozpur.

Flying Ranee
The Flying Ranee ('ranee' = queen) runs between Mumbai Central and Surat. The origin of the Flying Ranee was a BB&CI Weekend Special in 1906. This stopped running after April 24, 1914. The train was restarted as the Flying Queen on 1st May 1937 (at the inauguration ceremony the train was also referred to as the 'Flying Ranee, Queen of the West Coast'). This time it was aimed at business travellers and it did the Bombay - Surat route in 4 hours flat, hauled by an H class 4-6-0 with poppet valves. Speeds regularly averaged 50mph, in those days (and still) a remarkable performance. The train was again discontinued in 1939 owing to the war situation.

On 1st November 1950 the train again steamed off from Surat at 6am, this time as the Flying Ranee and has been running since then. The Flying Ranee was one of the few trains in India to have an observation car, and one of the earliest to have an on-train telephone service. Among other luxuries for this prestige train were a radio and gramophone located in the dining car. With an average speed of 80km/h, it was one of the fastest medium-haul trains in India until the late 1960s.

Around 1965 it was hauled by WP locos dedicated for this train. In June 1977 the train switched to electric traction, being hauled by a WCAM-1; this arrangement lasted even today with a WCAM-2P ocassionally taking charge. On Dec. 18, 1979, double-decker cars were added to the Flying Ranee's rake (the second such train in post-Independence India, the first being the Sinhagad Exp.). The rake today usually has 18 cars.

Deccan Queen
The Deccan Queen between Mumbai and Pune is one of the more prestigious and popular trains with a long history. It started running on June 1, 1930, on the GIPR's DC electrified route, hauled by EA/1 class loco No. 4006 (new class WCP-2, new No. 20024).

When inaugurated, it had two custom-built 7-car rakes; one with a silver livery with scarlet trim, and the other with a navy-blue livery with gold trim. These had accommodation for 61 first-class passengers and 156 second-class passengers (initially the train had only first-class accommodation). These were replaced by the standard ICF-built anti-telescopic coaches in 1966.

The train has been almost always electrically hauled. The train has been hauled by many different classes of DC locos: WCM-4, WCM-2, WCM-1, sometimes WCM-5. On one occasion when the WCM-1 in charge failed, a WCG-1 (EF/1) hauled it from Lonavala to Mumbai. It has been hauled a few times by WCAM-2P locos; it is now hauled by a WCAM-3 loco. On rare occasions it has been hauled by a WDM-2.

When introduced, as the first passenger train to be electrically hauled, it cut down travel time between Mumbai and Pune to 2h 45m. (The previous best time for this being 3h 26m with steam traction -- the Poona Race Specials of the GIPR from about 1901, which required three locomotive changes and one reversal en route. The regular service on this route by the Poona Mail took about 6 hours!) The Deccan Queen was one of the earlier trains to regularly get a vestibuled rake, and was perhaps the first also to have a dining car and a ladies coach.

Originally a weekend train, in the 1940s it became a daily service. It now has a run time of nearly 3.5 hours, with a rake of 16 coaches and a restaurant car. Unusually, several coaches on this train are reserved entirely for season ticket holders.

The Boat Mail
The Boat Mail was a train and steamer ferry service between India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka, as it then was). In the late 19th century, the railway route in India was from Madras to Tuticorin. At Tuticorin, passengers embarked on a steamer to Colombo. The train took 21 hours and 50 minutes for the journey from Madras to Tuticorin. The Boat Mail was one of the early trains to get vestibuled carriages, in 1898.

After the Pamban Bridge was built, the train's route changed and it went from Madras to Dhanushkodi. A much shorter ferry service then took the passengers to Talaimannar in Ceylon, from where another train went to Colombo. In 1964 the Boat Mail was washed into the sea by huge waves during a cyclone, and the tracks to Dhanushkodi were also destroyed.

At one time the South Indian Railway considered constructing a bridge (12 miles (19km) long) across the shallow waters and sand shoals and reefs known as Adam's Bridge between India and Sri Lanka. However, this plan was shelved when World War I broke out.

The Imperial Indian Mail
A prestigious train of yesteryears. The East Indian Railway and the Great Indian Peninsular Railway introduced this train in 1926 between Bombay and Calcutta. The train's schedule was such that the departures from Bombay made for convenient connections for passengers arriving by ship at Ballard Pier from Great Britain and other places. The train was known for a high level of luxurious accommodation. It carried only about 32 first-class passengers, their servants, and the mail. This train is the forerunner of the Calcutta Mail trains of later years.

Janata Express, Jansewa Express, Matribhumi Express, Jana Shatabdi Express, Garib Rath trains
Starting with the Jayanti Janata Express introduced in 1973 (Jan. 26) between New Delhi and Ernakulam / Mangalore, IR has periodically tried out "classless" trains as a populist measure. The Janata ("People") Expresses of the 1970s had only 2nd-class non-airconditioned coaches. More such trains were introduced later (Coromandel, Gitanjali, Minar, Himgiri, etc.) but several eventually did acquire air-conditioned or first-class coaches. A few Janata Expresses still survive. More recently Jansewa Expresses were introduced along the same lines, and in 2001, IR announced several new Matribhumi ("Motherland") Expresses with only second-class sitting and sleeping accommodations.

The Janata Expresses were quite successful in their day, especially as they were IR's first attempt to build a brand of sorts in terms of service quality. For instance, these trains all had drinking water available in all the coaches, a novelty at the time.

[2/02] Jana Shatabdi ("People's Shatabdi") Expresses were introduced in 2002. These are supposed to be trains that have the running speeds and operational precedence of the Shatabdi Expresses, but with only second-class accommodation (including, for the day-time trains, second-class non-AC chair-car coaches).

[3/06] The Garib Rath ('Chariots of the Poor') expresses were introduced as a more affordable version of the AC-3T long-distance trains. These have all-AC rakes, but fares are intended to be up to 25% or so lower than those of the regular air-conditioned long-distance trains. Four of these were introduced in 2006 as an experiment.

Samjhauta Express
The Samjhauta Express is a bi-weekly train that runs between India and Pakistan, the only rail connection between the two countries. It has been running, with just one break of service, since 1976. It was a daily train when the service started, and changed to a bi-weekly schedule in 1994. Earlier the rakes were returned to the home country the same day but later [4/00] the rake remained overnight.

Its termini are Lahore in Pakistan and Amritsar in India. The border crossing takes place between Wagah in Pakistan and Attari in India. Originally, this was a through service with the same rake going all the way between the termini; now the Pakistani rake stops at Attari at which point passengers have to change trains. The train service was set up with an agreement between IR and Pakistan Railways to alternately use an Indian and a Pakistani rake and locomotive for the train, six months at a time.

The train usually has between 4 and 8 coaches. The rake supplied by Pakistan is usually hauled by an Alco DL-543 class ALU20 diesel loco (Lahore shed), with the entire train in the standard dark green livery of PR. There was [4/00] a proposal to have an Indian rake go from Amritsar to Wagah across the border.

[12/02] Tensions between the two countries have resulted in the train service being suspended. Read more about this and other details about links to Pakistan in the section on international connections. Update: [1/04] The train is set to resume running on January 15, 2004. International ticketing for journeys from Lahore to 8 Indian cities and from Delhi to 8 Pakistani cities has also been set up.

Lifeline Express
The Lifeline Express or Jeevan Rekha Express is a mobile hospital in a train. There are actually two such trains. Each train, with specially designed air-conditioned coaches, has two surgical operation theatres with three operating tables, a sterilizing room, several patient wards, on-board power generators, a pantry car, storage for medical supplies, and accommodation for medical staff.

The train visits different parts of the country, usually rural areas with insufficient medical facilities, or areas hit by natural disasters, etc., and stays in each place for several days while medical care (routine as well as major surgery) is provided to the local people.

The Lifeline Exp. was started on July 16, 1991, with three coaches donated by IR, and equipment from Impact India, a non-profit health service provider based in New York. Impact India still runs the trains with help from IR and corporate and private donors.

Patiala State Monorail
The Patiala State Monorail was opened in 1907, connecting Bassi and Sirhind in Patiala (10 km). Subsequently it was extended to connect Sirhind to Alampura and Patiala to Sunam and Bhawanigarh for a total route length of about 80km.

It is unusual in being a single-track system (monorail). The track runs alongside a normal road; the train rode on the rail and had an extra wheel that rode on the road surface, to stabilize it. The rail-riding wheels are double-flanged, 3' in diameter and 6" wide. About 95% of the weight was to be borne by these. The outrigger wheel was 5' in diameter and was to bear 5% of the weight. Motive power was originally in the form of mules and oxen, but in March 1909 four monorail locomotives were supplied by Orenstein & Koppel of Berlin. One section, the Morrinda line, never had locomotives for its entire lifetime, depending on oxen instead into the 20th century. The monorail system is known as the 'Ewing System'. The Patiala monorail was the first commercial use of this system, and its proponent was Col. C W Bowles, the engineer who designed the Patiala railway.

The line was at first run by Marshland, Price & Co., but later taken over by the state of Patiala. Operating difficulties and competition from other transport systems caused the line to close in 1927. After being discarded for 35 years (!) the rolling stock and locomotives were found, rescued, and preserved. One loco was restored to full working order in 1976, and is currently at the National Railway Museum. At the museum, it has a monorail car also attached, which is a reproduction on an original underframe. One coach (Col. Bowles' private saloon, is also on display.

Further reading: The Railway Magazine article on the PSMT.

Also see: Don Dickens' page on the PSMT.

Locomotive Info

Builder: Orenstein & Koppel, Berlin, Germany.
Year built: 1907
Wheel arrangement: 0-3-0T (double flanged wheels)
Balancing wheel: One flange-less wheel, 39" diameter
Cylinders: Two outside cylinders, 5-1/2" X 14"
The Presidential Saloon
The Presidential Saloon is not a train, but a pair of twin coaches (numbered 9000 and 9001) reserved for exclusive use by the President of India. The coaches were built in 1956 and are usually stabled at New Delhi station. The coaches have a dining room that doubles as a visiting room, a lounge room or conference room, and the president's bedroom. There is also a kitchen and chambers for the president's secretaries and staff as well as the railway staff who accompany him. The coaches are luxuriously appointed with teak furniture and silk drapes and cushion covers.

The Presidential Saloon was used regularly by many presidents in the 1960s and early 1970s. A tradition developed of having the president on the completion of his term use the coaches for his outbound journey from New Delhi to his residence elsewhere in the country although it's not certain when that started. The last president to use the coaches in this way as Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, in 1977.

After that, the coaches fell into disuse for reasons of security and convenience, although they were regularly maintained and inspected at New Delhi despite not being used. After a hiatus of about 26 years, the coaches were used again on May 30, 2003 when the president, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam used it for a 60km journey from Harnaut to Patna. For his use, the coaches were renovated and provided with modern equipment such as satellite-based communication systems.

History

The predecessor of the Presidential Saloon was the Vice Regal Coach used in the 19th century and the early 20th century by the Viceroy of India. This was kept at Calcutta until 1927 when it was brought to New Delhi when that city became the capital of British India. The Vice Regal Coach was furnished with Persian carpets, a 'sinking sofa', and -- a novelty in Indian trains then -- hot and cold running water. It was not air-conditioned, but used 'khas' mats for air cooling. The first Indian president Dr Rajendra Prasad used this coach after 1950, and used it to travel from New Delhi to Kurukshetra, among other places.

Freight Trains
Contents

Freight trains, etc.
Freight trains
Q. What are the typical freight loads carried by IR?
IR carries the entire gamut of goods, ranging from parcel traffic and small consignments, agricultural products, raw materials like iron ore and petroleum, and finished goods like automobiles. Over the last few decades, IR has made an effort to move away from small consignments or piecemeal freight, and to increase the number of block rakes where a shipper contracts for an entire rake assigned to carry a shipment. These are more profitable for IR as the rake does not have to be split up into or amalgamated from individual wagons going to or coming from different points, saving on marshalling time, transit time, and scheduling. Most of IR's freight revenue now comes from such block rakes carrying bulk goods such as coal or cement. A typical load (full rake) consists of 40 BCN wagons (2200t). Sometimes half loads (mini-rake) of 20 BCN wagons (1100t) are also available for contracts (see below for more on the mini-rake scheme).

In late 2004, some of the specifications for wagon loading were modified, so as to allow greater loads to be carried. For materials such as iron ore, an additional 4t can now be loaded, allowing a BOXN wagon to carry 62t.

Of course, IR does also carry container traffic and also smaller consignments, and there has been talk recently [10/01] of possibly re-entering the piecemeal freight business actively. Some dedicated parcel trains have been introduced. Parcel vans are still used a lot for small consignments; these vans are generally attached to passenger trains. They used to be more numerous in the past, but had been diminishing in importance in the 1980s and 1990s as IR focused on larger loads of freight.

[4/00] High-capacity parcel vans ('Green Parcel Vans') have been used in special-purpose rakes intended for carrying fruits and vegetables. The high-capacity parcel van carries 23t as opposed to the ordinary parcel van which carries 18t of goods. Single high-capacity parcel vans have been seen attached to passenger trains (e.g., GT, Lokshakti and Karnataka Exps., Saurashtra Mail, Flying Ranee); the vans are marked 'Blue Parcel Service' and have a dark-blue livery. Recently [1/03] new parcel vans formed by converting old general passenger stock (GS coaches) have been spotted at various places. These are being used for transporting cars and other automobiles.

Refrigerated parcel van service is available on a few sections. One such service proposed [2/03] for the Ernakulam-Thiruvananthapuram Jan Shatabdi will have a refrigerated parcel van that can accommodate 5t of frozen goods at -20C and 12t of chilled goods at +4C. This coach, manufactured by RCF, has a maximum allowable speed of 130km/h and has a diesel-powered refrigeration unit that can run for 15 days without refuelling. Similar services are expected to be introduced on most major routes. RCF plans to produce 9 of these refrigerated vans in 2003. CR and WR are also introducing such services. Now [10/04] IR has around 10 of these new design refrigerated vans.

In addition, a mini-rake scheme has been introduced [7/03] where loads smaller than full freight rakes (usually half-size, i.e., 20 wagons, also known as half rakes) are booked for transport by IR at full train-load prices, for distances up to about 300km with connecting services for transshipment to road transport. Not only is the half-rake service more convenient for many industrial concerns, the number of sidings at goods sheds and transshipment points where half-rakes can be loaded or unloaded is much larger than the number of sidings where full rakes can be handled.

Bulk freight transport rates also vary based on the number of times a rake may be loaded or unloaded. A so-called two-point rake is one that can be loaded or unloaded at two points, usually a half-rake at a time, at approved combinations of two loading or unloading locations.

Some freight rakes are used continuously in dedicated operations over a closed loop journey. These are known as closed-circuit rakes, and typically consist of 40 BCN or BCNA wagons (cement), or 58 BOXN wagons (coal), or 48 BTPN tankers (petroleum products).

The 'Green Bogey' (Green Bogie) service provides for the transport of perishable agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) in refrigerated and non-refrigerated wagons attached to passenger trains.

Q. What is 'Scale R' or 'Scale S', etc., in the context of parcel service?
IR has several freight rate scales for parcel traffic. Scale R or Rajdhani Parcel Service is applicable to parcels carried on the Rajdhani Express trains and thereby being assured of the speediest delivery of all IR's services. Scale P (Premium Parcel Service) applies to parcels carried on certain Shatabdi Express trains, certain other Mail/Express trains, and all Special Parcel trains (including the Green Parcel vans, Blue Parcel Service, etc.). Scale S (Standard Parcel Service) applies to all parcels carried on other passenger trains. There also used to be a Scale E (Economy Parcel Service) which was applicable to parcels carried on ordinary passenger trains, but that has since been abolished [3/05] and the category merged with Scale P. Newspapers, magazines, and certain other goods always get classified as Scale S traffic (earlier, Scale E).

Q. How are freight trains numbered or named?
The rakes are assigned names in alphabetic sequence starting with a name that begins with an 'A' for the first formation out of a marshalling yard after 0100 hrs, along with a number. This designation can change if the rake is broken up at another yard and regrouped. Thus, freight trains have names such as 'Ahmedabad 10', or 'Bombay 21', or 'India 38'. The letters 'J' and 'U' are not used, so that there are 24 letters available, one for each hour of the day. The number following the alphabetic part of the name indicates the time (minutes past the top of the hour) when the train departed the yard; e.g., 'India 38' is a freight train that left the yard at 0938 hrs. Trains leaving between midnight and 0100 hrs use the letter 'Z'. The words used to signify the letters of the alphabet are not standardized; 'Z' could be indicated by 'Zebra' or 'Zimbabwe'.

Some special freight trains are named differently (e.g. the Shalimar Special out of Mumbai (Wadi Bunder to Shalimar near Calcutta), or the 'Salt Cotours' freight (Wadi Bunder to Salt Cotours near Chennai)); these tend to be 'privileged' trains and they carry goods with guaranteed delivery schedules. The 'Ahmedabad Arrow' used to run between Bombay and Ahmedabad.

Other special freight trains include the 'Freight Chief' and the 'Super Link Expresses'. CONCOR introduced several new dedicated timetabled container trains in 2000 (Shalimar - Chennai, Shalimar - Hyderabad, Cossipore - New Delhi) and 2001 (Cossipore - Haldia, for international container freight), with more planned (Shalimar - Mumbai, Shalimar - Nagpur).

Recently [12/00] special timetabled parcel trains have been introduced by SER. One is the 'Dakshin Parcel Express' between Calcutta and Chennai, and another is the 'Pashchim Parcel Express' between Calcutta and Mumbai. These run at 90-105km/h. The 'Millennium Parcel Express' is slated [5/01] to run between Chennai and New Delhi, and also perhaps Shalimar - Ahmedabad, Shalimar - Sanatnagar, Sanatnagar - Tughlakabad, and Turbhe (New Bombay) - Shalimar.

Q. Who carries container traffic in India?
Most rail container traffic in India is handled by CONCOR (the Container Corporation of India) which until recently was the only such organization. CONCOR is a public-sector concern, but it maintains its own fleet of wagons and other assets that are separate from IR's, although the traffic moves on IR's tracks.

Recently [2/06] the government has given approval to the Pipavav Rail Corporation (PRCL) to offer container services in India. It is expected that PRCL will run container services from the ports of Pipavav, Mundra, Chennai/Ennore, Vishakhapatnam, and Kochi (Cochin). PRCL is a joint venture between IR and the Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd. Originally, PRCL was set up to construct and operate a 270km BG railway line between Pipavav port and Surendranagar on the Western Railway.

Private operators [8/07] Private companies have only very recently been given approval to operate in India. Generally speaking the private companies are given limited licences to operate container services on specific routes and for a specific number of years. In April 2007, Boxtrans Logistics, belonging to the JM Baxi Group, became the first private player to operate container services, with a rake of 45 Texmaco flat wagons running between Cossipore (ER) and Loni near New Delhi and Mundra port (Gujarat). The initial runs carried about 90 TEUs. Boxtrans also expects to run services on the Loni - Vishakhapatnam route. Its licence allows it to run on all routes except the premier New Delhi - JNPT route. It is expected to maintain 3 rakes of its own. Another company, APL (formerly American President Lines), belonging to the Singapore-based Nepture Orient Lines began container operations in May 2007 with a rake from Loni to JNPT. APL holds a so-called 'Category 1' licence allowing it to run container services on all routes in India, for a period of 20 years. APL is initially buying seven 45-flat-wagon rakes from Titagarh Industries. A joint venture between Hind Terminals (of the Sharaf Group, UAE) and MSC Agency (belonging to the Mediterranean Shipping Company, Geneva) also has a Category 1 licence. Another private operator, Innovative B2B Logistic Solutions, has a limited licence to run container services on some routes. Other licensees include Reliance Infrastructure Engineers, Adani Logistics, Central Warehousing Corporation, and Delhi Assam Roadways Corp.

Q. What are CONTRACK trains? And ConRaj trains? And CARTRAC?
Recently [1999] CONCOR has begun running some fast (up to 100km/h) guaranteed delivery container freight trains on certain routes (35 rail corridors have been identified as suitable for such service). The rakes consist of 5-wagon groups of flat cars; the flat cars are low flat cars which allow loading 'Tallboy' containers.

A particular freight service of this kind inaugurated recently [6/00] goes by the name of CONTRACK and is a time-tabled weekly train between Shalimar Terminal and Tondiarpet (Chennai).

Some of the fast (up to 100km/h [8/00]) freight trains, especially on the Mumbai-Delhi route, are informally named 'Con-Raj' (for Container Rajdhani). Some of these even go straight through Vadodara without a halt, with crew changes only at Valsad and Godhra.

CONCOR has obtained several high-speed flat wagons which are rated for service at 100km/h. (These are also known as 'low belt container flat wagons', and abbreviated 'BLC'.) These have several advanced features, such as automatic twist locks, slackless drawbars, and small-diameter wheels allowing a low bed height. These are currently [12/00] in use on the Tughlakabad-Mumbai container route for the Con-Raj trains mentioned above. More are being ordered, under the auspices of a World Bank loan and the IBRD. Newer versions [9/04] have automatic load sensing devices to allow optimum braking under varying loads. The wagons have a single-pipe air-brake system.

CARTRAC is the name given to CONCOR's automobile transport service. It uses converted passenger coaches to hold automobiles in two decks. A typical CARTRAC rake has about 21 such modified coaches.

Q. What is the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC)?
The Dedicated Freight Corridor is a project for new railway lines exclusively for carrying freight isolated from normal IR traffic and passenger trains. Conceived in 2004-2005, planning began in 2006, and in 2007 initial proposals have been drawn up. In the first phase, the Western Corridor will connect the Jawaharlal Nehru Port to New Delhi via Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Jaipur, and Rewari and further on to Tughlakabad and Dadri. There will also be a link between Dadri and Khurja, and feeder routes connecting other ports of Gujarat. There will also be four logistic terminals, one each near New Delhi, Jaipur, Ahemdabad, and Vadodara. The Western Corridor is expected to carry mainly container traffic. The Western Corridor is expected to be unelectrified, using diesel traction. The Eastern Corridor is expected to connect Ludhiana to Sonnagar via Ambala, Saharanpur, Khurja, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, and Mughalsarai. The primary feeder routes for this will be from Sonnagar to Durgapur via Gomoh, Sonnagar to Tatanagar via Garhwa Road, and Barkakana to Bokaro via Chandrapura. Eventually it will also connect to a new deep-water port off the coast of West Bengal near Kolkata. The Eastern Corridor is expected to carry more heavy mineral traffic and less container traffic. The Eastern Corridor is expected to be electrified. The entire DFC project will include 2,700km or so of exclusive freight lines (new construction), and about 5,000km of feeder lines that will include some new construction and many existing lines that will be upgraded. It is expected that trains running on the DFC lines will be up to 1.5km long (100 wagon rakes) and running at up to 100km/h. Double-stacking of containers is expected to be the rule, especially on the Western Corridor which will be unelectrified. Transit time for freight between Mumbai and New Delhi is xpected to drop to about 36 hours from the current 60 hours. In the busiest freight routes such as Ahmedabad - Marwar, the number of freight trains running is expected to rise from 15 each way each day (currently) to 72 each way; between JNP and Vadodara the increase will be from 9 to 49. Expected completion time for the first phase of the DFC project (the routes described above) is around 5-7 years (i.e., completion by 2012-2014). RITES is the agency carrying out the initial feasibility studies for the project.

Q. International freight: Are there direct freight trains running between India and neighbouring countries?
Freight trains run regularly between India and Pakistan via the Attari (Punjab) - Lahore route. The Munabao - Khokhrapar route is under consideration [2007] for goods traffic (it is currently only used for the Thar Express passenger traffic). Freight trains have also been running regularly between India and Bangladesh on the Gede-Darshana and Petrapole - Benapole routes. Another route connecting India and Bangladesh is Singhbad (India) - Rohanpur (Bangladesh). The Bongaon (India) - Jessore (Bangladesh) direct BG route has been proposed, and needs a 10km link constructed between Akhaura and Agartala. Nepal is connected to India by rail by the Birgunj - Raxaul line. See the international section and also the international links list.

Q. How heavy are the freights carried by IR? What are the heaviest freights?
[3/99] Among the heaviest freights regularly hauled in India are the 4700+ tonne loads hauled by two (sometimes one, depending on the gradient, etc.) WAG-9 locos in the Dhanbad Division. Earlier, these freights required multiple WAG-5 locos to haul them. Typical heavy freight trains in many sections use two or three WAG-5's at the front and two or three WAG-5's at the rear. Iron ore trains on the Kulem-Londa section, as well as other heavy freights in other sections such as on the SER can have up to 7 locos, for instance with 3 at either end and 1 in the middle, connected and operated through a system known as 'Locotrol'. The Kirandul-Kottavalasa line, before it was electrified, often had many freight rakes hauled by 5 or 6 diesel locos (1960s). (Today 2 or 3 WAG-5 locos are usual for these.)

[5/01] On May 17, 2001, a single WAG-9 achieved a top speed of 100km/h while hauling a rake of 58 BOXN-HA wagons (4700t) on the Sonenagar-Mughalsarai section of ER. The 123km section was covered in 100 minutes, at an average speed of 72km/h.

Trials have been conducted with a single WAG-7 hauling a 6000 tonne rake on level track near Gomoh; 5500t rakes have sometimes been hauled double-headed by WAG-9 locos; and 5500t rakes have also been hauled by two or three WAG-7 (?) locos. In 1998 a single WAM-4 hauled a 9000t (!) rake near Ghaziabad. In the early 1990s, a kilometer-long coal rake for NTPC's Dadri power plant was hauled on the Grand Chord.

Diesel traction: a single WDG-4 has been used to haul a 4700t rake (58 BOXN wagons).

'Midhaul' operations where locomotives are used in the middle of a rake are not common in IR. Locos are more often added at the front and rear of a rake. SCR has run [2/02] some trials using up to 7 locomotives (3 in the front, 3 at the rear, and one in the middle) for a 54-wagon rake on the Castle Rock - Kulem ghat section. Trials on the Hassan-Mangalore section with 58-BOXN wagon rakes were carried out with six WDG-3A locos, 3 in the front and 3 at the rear. Even though the newer locomotives such as the WAG-9 or WDG-4 can haul these heavy loads singlehandedly, many of the older bridges and other structures on IR's lines cannot withstand the higher longitudinal stresses that these locos exert, hence often these loads are hauled by multiple lower-powered locos. Brake power is also an issue on gradients. Three WDG-3A locos are said to be able to keep a fully-loaded 58-BOXN rake at 30km/h on a 1:50 down gradient using train brakes and dynamic brakes.

The BOXN-HA wagons (see the section on wagon types) was planned for heavier axle-loading and would have eventually allowed the routine hauling of 5220t rakes without the need for longer sidings or loops; however the experiments with this wagon type didn't work out and they were never manufactured after the initial batch of about 301.

Top Speeds : [Times uncertain here] For 4700t loads on level track: A WDG-2 can attain 68km/h in about 56 minutes (? not certain); a WDG-4 can reach 82km/h in 30 minutes; a WAG-5 can attain a top speed of 80km/h in 33 minutes; for a WAG-7, the figures are 92km/h and 38 minutes (or 70km/h in 15 minutes); and for a WAG-9, 100km/h and 17 minutes. In 2000, successful trials were conducted of running BOXN wagon rakes at 100km/h on the Gomoh-Mughalsarai section, and even up to Ghaziabad.

Goods trains on mainline BG routes are generally restricted to 75km/h, with a few exceptions and special operations. (Parcel vans and milk vans or refrigerated vans for perishables attached to passenger trains can of course go faster.) the average speeds of goods trains on the main trunk routes are around 40-45km/h. There is now [9/04] a proposal to raise the maximum permissible speed limit for goods trains to 100km/h on the trunk routes connecting New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. These six routes (the quadrilateral and its diagonals) total about 10,000km, about 15% of the total IR network, but they account for 75% of the total freight traffic. The raising of the speed limit is expected to raise the average speed to 55km/h, which can potentially increase the utilization of the track substantially.

Q. Do double-stacked container trains run on IR?
IR has only recently [3/06] begun running a few double-stacked container trains. This is primarily because most of IR's main routes are electrified and raising OHE clearances is not permitted under the present Schedule Of (moving) Dimensions. Other reasons include low axle loads permitted on certain lines and types of wagons (20.32 tonnes on most lines and for most wagons, and 22.9 tonnes for few routes and type of wagons).

RDSO has been exploring the possibilities for double-stacking and some trials have been run. Normally, BLCA and BLCB flat wagons used for 9.5' high containers have 840mm diameter wheels with a floor heigh tof 1009mm above the rails. A single rake (45 BLCA/BLCB) can carry 90 20' long ISO containers or 45 40' long containers and this standard configuration can run at 100km/h on most of the important IR routes. In late 2003, RDSO ran trials on the Sidhapur - Umerdasi section of WR using double-stacked 40' long (and 9.5' high) containers on unmodified BLCA/BLCB wagons. Satisfactory ride characteristics were observed up to 85km/h on straight track, and also at lower speeds in yards, over complex points, and on 2-degree curves. The vertical clearance needed for double-stacking is a minimum of 6809mm from rail level, or about 7m. RDSO has submitted reports on this to the Railway Board and occasionally [2004, 2005] IR has made reference to the possibility of double-stacking, but this had not materialized anywhere except for extremely limited trials until 2006, when the first double-stacked container service was begun between Jaipur and Pipavav (starting on March 24, 2006). Jaipur - Pipavav was chosen because of the lack of electrification which eliminated the height constraint, and easy elimination of other obstructions which might have infringed on double-stacked train moving dimensions (and of course the availability of container freight from Pipavav port). The Jaipur-Pipavav section uses the usual BLCA/BLCB flat wagons for the containers. It is likely that other sections where double-stacking is introduced will see the use of different wagons with lower floors to allow vertical clearances to be met. Axle loads are expected to rise to 32.5 tonnes for double-stack container trains.

CONCOR is [8/07] in an agreement with Gateway Rail Freight, Pvt Ltd., to construct and operate a rail-linked double-stack container terminal at Garhi Harsuru near Gurgaon in Haryana, connecting the National Capital Region to the western ports.

[6/07] The proposed new wagon factory to be set up at Dalmia Nagar in Bihar is expected to manufacture 32.5 tonne axle-load wagons which will be used for double-stack container trains.

[4/07] Even triple-stack container trains with special-purpose automobile-carrier containers have been proposed for the New Delhi - Pune route. The railway ministry announced [4/07] a pilot project to run such triple-decker container trains to carry cars, scooters, and motorcycles in preparation for the eventual operation of such trains on the western section of the proposed Dedicated Freight Corridor (Mumbai - Ahmedabad - Palanpur - Rewari). The triple-stack trains are expected to be hauled by diesel locomotives as this western freight corridor is (in the initial planning stages, anyway) expected to be unelectrified.

Q. How has IR developed its hauling capacity?
Rakes of the old freight wagons, classified 'CG', for Covered Goods, consisting of the old 4-wheeled C or CR wagons) up to 1850 or so tonnes (2350t for some types of wagons). With the introduction of bogie stock, mixed CRT/CRC/BCX rakes became more common and brought the maximum up to 2750 tonnes. As noted above, even today the standard load for a typical shipment by a 'full rake' of miscellaneous goods is about 2200t.

The introduction of bogie wagons and air-braked stock has allowed larger and heavier formations to be hauled, and 3660t rakes of box wagons became common. The so-called 'Jumbo' rakes, consisting mostly of BCX and similar bogie stock are up to 3500-3750 tonnes (these are air-braked today, but vacuum-braked rakes of this size have been used), and beyond these are what are known in IR parlance as 'Super-Jumbo' rakes, carrying up to 4500-4700 tonnes. The super-jumbo rakes consist entirely of the newer BCX/BCN/BCNA/etc. wagons and are air-braked.

The 'Green Arrow' rakes have only BCN/BCNA wagons, up to about 40 of them. The name comes from the green paint scheme used for these air-braked wagons. Forty BCN wagons are about the limit for most parts of IR's network because of the restriction imposed by the lengths of loops where freight trains can be diverted to allow passenger trains to pass. The standard loop length is 650m, although many places are now getting loops of 900m to cope with freight formations that are up to 850m long.

BOXN formations up to 58 cars are also common (again, this is the maximum length allowable on most loop lines). The 'Green Bullet' trains have BOXN rakes usually carrying a bulk commodity like iron ore for thermal power plants. (The ones carrying coal are often known as 'Black Bullet' trains.) BCNA rakes can be up to 58 cars too, but more commonly 40+ cars or so. BCN wagons being a bit longer, only 40 cars or so are formed into a single rake.

In several places, IR has run, as experiments, longer freight trains formed by combining two or three freight rakes for part of a route and then splitting them later as they go on to their respective destinations. However, when running combined the extra-long rake has to be scheduled carefully as it places severe constraints on the movement of all other traffic on the same track because it cannot fit on any loop at any station, and any problem with the rake can result in major delays.

Upgraded versions of the BOXN wagons (class BOXN-HA, see the section on wagons) with payloads of 66t (and axle loads of up to 23.5t are planned to be run on several sections after track upgrades. Sixteen sections have been identified for this [4/05]:

Gua-Barajamda-Rajkharasawan-Sini-Chandill Gardhrubeswar-Joychandpahar-Damodar-Burnpur-Asansol, Bondamunda-Sini-Adityapur, Bolanikhadan-Barajamda, Bondamunda-Barsuan, Bimalgarh-Kiriburu, Bhilai-Dalli Rajhara, Damodar-Kalipahar, Padapahar-Banspani, Bondamunda-Nawagaon-Puranpani, Bhilai-Ahlwara, Waltair-Kirandul (the 'KK' line), Vasco-Hospet-Guntakal-Renigunta-Chennai, Nawagaon-Hatia-Muri-Bokaro, Purulia-Kotshila, Daitatri-Jakhapura-Paradeep and Sambalpur-Titlagarh-Rayagada-Vijayanagaran-Visakhapatnam.

Q. What is the state of intermodal transportation in India? Are roadrailers, road trailers on rails, etc. used in India?
Currently [7/00] a trial Wabash / Kirloskar roadrailer runs between Konkan Railway (or JNPT) and Nagpur. Konkan Railway has also made some trials of TOFC (trailer on flat car). Intermodal cars are used quite a bit. They are configured with 6 trucks for 5 cars, but double-stacking is not used as the floor height of the cars is usually the same as for regular COFC (container on flat car) services. CONCOR does have flat cars with low bed height for Tallboy containers. (Currently [2/02] around 1875 flat cars in its fleet; to increase by another 1000 or more in 2002.)

Spine cars, well cars, freight DMUs, CargoSprinter, etc. are not in use in India currently. [7/00]

Konkan Railway pioneered the 'roll-on, roll-off' ('RORO' or 'RO-RO') concept in India on its route between Mumbai (Kolad) and Goa (Verna). Starting in 1999 with 5 trucks being transported at a time, today [1/05] the service handles 50 trucks on its route each day. In this service, trucks belonging to commercial private trucking companies loaded with their goods drive on to a rake of flat cars and are carried (trucks and their cargo, and their drivers!) by train to the destination where they simply drive off the train; this obviously eliminates a lot of time lost in intermodal transshipment. Loading and unloading at either end can be as short as 10-15 minutes. The RORO rake normally achieves speeds of about 75km/h. The Kolad-Verna stretch takes about 10 hours with RORO while it can be a full day's driving or more if the trucks take the road instead. The trucks are restricted to 25 tonnes for 2-axle trucks and 40 tonnes for 4-axle trucks. RORO service is also available now until Mangalore (Surathkal) on the KR route. Recently [7/04] it was proposed that KR get monopoly rights to operate such RORO services on the rest of the IR network. Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Mumbai-Kochi are said to be among the routes being considered for this.

Q. How are the different kinds of freight cars classified?
.... And information on brakes, couplers, etc.
Please see the section on freight cars in the page on rolling stock for more details on wagons and their features, freight consists, etc.

Q. What's a 'mini-rake'?
A half-size goods rake (20 wagons), available for booking under special tariffs. See above.

Q. What's a 'jumbo' or 'super-jumbo' rake?
The term 'jumbo' originated when longer and heavier freight rakes could be hauled as better wagons (bogie stock), more powerful locos, and air-braking begin to come into use. A 'jumbo' rake is usually a BCX/BOY/etc. rake of up to 3500-3750 tonnes, which is much larger than the old 'CG' rakes which used to be limited to 1800 tonnes or so. All air-braked rakes of BCN/BCNA wagons up to 4500-4750 tonnes are known as 'super-jumbo' rakes. See the section on freight.

Q. Why does a goods train sometimes move backwards briefly before starting to move ahead from a stop?
There are a few different reasons that this happens. One reason (and the official one stated in working timetables) has to do with ensuring the couplers (CBC's) along the rake are all engaged and locked before starting off. The backward push forces the couplers to engage if they are loose, not fully engaged, or if the coupler pins had been inadvertently (or maliciously) lifted while the train was stopped.

Another reason is to compress the couplers along the length of the rake, so that when the loco starts moving forward, it has an easier time setting the wagons at the front in motion first before the rear wagons as the slack in the couplers plays out along the length of the rake -- it doesn't have to set the entire train in motion all at once. This is more important with poor track conditions where the loco cannot develope its full tractive effort before its wheels slips, or with older style bearings on the wagons which have much higher starting friction than the rolling friction encountered when on the move. Bad or older designs of bearings can also stick or bind and increase the starting resistance.

A third reason for the backward push is to release brakes where the blocks have stuck to the wheel treads (brake binding); once released by the backward push, there is no further resistance to forward motion. This was more of a problem in the vacuum brake days with poorly maintained brakes. Lastly, in the age before walkie-talkies, the backward push was a way to inform the guard at the rear end that the train was about to set off -- with really long rakes and noisy environments, horn signals might not always work.

Q. Why are there sometimes empty (or water-filled) tankers or other wagons at the end and beginning of rakes carrying petroleum products or other inflammable substances?
These empty or water-filled tankers or other wagons are known as 'guard wagons' and are intended to provide a safety buffer for the tankers carrying inflammable cargo. They are intended to take the brunt of any minor collision so that the tankers carrying the inflammable substances are not themselves damaged leading to possible explosions or major fires. At the head of the rake, next to the loco, another reason for providing guard wagons is to prevent inflammable vapours from the tankers from catching fire either from the hot diesel exhaust from the loco, or sparks at the pantograph from electric locos.

Salient Features of Indian Railways

India is a land of diverse culture and Indian Railways play a key role in not only meeting the transport needs of the country, but also in binding together dispersed areas and promoting national integration. Truly, Indian Railways have emerged as the sinews of the Indian economy and have reached out to bring together the great Indian family.






Railways traverse through the length and breadth of the country covering 63,140 route kms as on 31.3.2002, comprising broad gauge (45,099 kms), meter gauge (14,776 kms) and narrow gauge (3,265 kms). As the principal constituent of the nation’s transport system, Indian Railways own a fleet of 2,16,717 wagons (units), 39,236 coaches and 7,739 number of locomotives and manage to run 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains. They carry more than a million tonne of freight traffic and about 14 million passengers covering 6,856 number of stations daily.






Indian Railways have been the prime movers to the nation and have the distinction of being one of the largest railway systems in the world under a single management. Railways being the more energy efficient mode of transport are ideally suited for movement of bulk commodities and for long distance travel. As compared to road transport, the railways have a number of intrinsic advantages. Railways are five to six times more energy efficient, four times more efficient in land use and significantly superior from the standpoints or environment impact and safety. Indian Railways, therefore, rightly occupy pride of place in the growth and development of the nation.






Railways, being the prime infrastructural sector of the country, need to expand and develop to keep pace with the growth of Indian economy. The massive investment needed for the development of the railway system has not been fully available. The budgetary support to the railways has been increasing, but is far from adequate and has not been keeping pace with the throw-forward.






Railways have to perform the dual role of commercial organization ad vehicle for fulfillment of social obligations. In national emergency, railways have been in the forefront in rushing relief material to disaster stricken regions. For meeting its social obligations, railways are required to make investments that are un-remunerative and also have to provide subsidized services. Unlike many foreign railways, which receive government subsidies for public service obligations, Indian Railways are not specifically compensated for these operations.






The Indian Railway system is managed through zones and operating divisions. There are also six production units engaged in manufacturing rolling stock, wheels and axles and other ancillary components to meet Railways’ requirements.





In pursuance of the decisions taken earlier, Government has now decided to operationalise seven new zones and eight new divisions. The North Western Railway at Jaipur and East Central Railway at Hajipur have been made functional with effect from 1st October 2002. Remaining five zones viz., East Coast Railway at Bhubhaneshwar, North Central Railway at Allahabad, South East Central Railway at Bilaspur, South Western Railway at Hubli and West Central Railway at Jabalpur and eight new divisions at Agra, Ahmedabad, Guntur, Nanded, Pune, Ranchi, Rangiya and Raipur shall be operational with effect from 1st April.



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Research, Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) is the sole research and development wing of Indian Railways, functioning as the technical adviser and consultant to the Ministry, Zonal Railways and Production Units. RDSO has been reorganized with effect from 1.1.2003 by elevating its status from ‘Attached Office’ to ‘Zonal Railway’ to give it greater flexibility and a boost to the research and development activities.



The formation of policy and overall control of the railways is vested in Railway Board comprising the Chairman, Financial Commissioner and other functional Members for Traffic, Engineering, Mechanical, Electrical and Staff matters.


As per the Separation Convention, 1924, the Railway Budget is presented to the Parliament ahead of the General Budget. Though the Railway Budget is separately presented to the Parliament, the figures relating to the receipt and expenditure of the Railways are also shown in the General Budget, since the receipts and expenditure of the Railways are a part and parcel of the total receipts and expenditure of the Government of India.