1).
Indian Railways started its service 161
years ago on 16 April 1853 when the first passenger train was run over a
stretch of 33 kilometres from Mumbai to Thane. The train with 14
railway carriages, carrying around 400 guests, left Bori Bunder at 3:30 p.m.
that day. It was declared a public holiday then.
2).
Nationalised in 1951, Indian Railways is today the largest rail network in Asia and the world’s second largest network
operated under a single management. It has 115,000
km of track length. It runs 12,617
trains to carry over 23 million passengers daily – equivalent to moving the
entire population of Australia – connecting more than 7,172 stations.
3).
Railways runs more than 7,421 freight
trains carrying 3 million tonnes
(MT) of freight every day. It has entered a select club of railways that
includes China, Russia and USA in carrying more than one billion tons of
freight annually. Indian Railways has over 239,281 freight wagons, 59,713 passenger coaches and 9,549
locomotives.
First/Longest/Oldest
in Indian Railways:
|
First Passenger
Train Ran On
|
16th April 1853
(between Bombay to Thane)
|
|
First Railway
Bridge
|
Dapoorie
Viaduct on the Mumbai-Thane route
|
|
First Rail
Tunnel
|
Parsik Tunnel
|
|
First Ghats
Covered by the Rail lines
|
Thal and Bhore
Ghats
|
|
First
Underground Railway
|
Calcutta METRO
|
|
First
Computerized Reservation System started in
|
New Delhi
(1986)
|
|
First Electric
Train ran on
|
3rd Feb' 1925
(between Bombay VT and Kurla)
|
|
Toilets on
Trains were introduced in
|
1891 (1st
Class) & 1907 (lower classes)
|
|
Shortest
Station Name
|
Ib (Orissa)
|
|
Longest Station
Name
|
Sri
Venkatanarasimharajuvariapeta (Tamil Nadu)
|
|
Busiest Railway
Station
|
Lucknow (64
trains everyday)
|
|
Longest Run
(Time)
|
Vivek Express
(3715 km in Approx 71 hrs)
|
|
Shortest Run
|
Route between
Nagpur to Ajni (3km)
|
|
Longest Run for
Daily Train
|
Kerala Express
(3054 km in 42.5 hrs)
|
|
Longest
Non-Stop Run (Distance)
|
Trivandrum
Rajdhani (528 km in 6.5 hrs)
|
|
Longest Railway
Platform in the World
|
Kharagpur
(2,733 ft in length)
|
|
Longest Railway
Bridge
|
Nehru Setu on
Sone River (10044ft in length)
|
|
Longest Tunnel
|
Karbude On
Konkan Railway between Monkey hill & Khandala (6.5 km)
|
|
Oldest
Preserved Locomotive
|
Fairy Queen
(1855), still in working order
|
|
Indian
Railway's Fastest Train
|
Bhopal-Shatabdi
(runs at a speed up to 140 Km/ph)
|
|
Train with
Maximum Number of Halts
|
Howrah-Amritsar
Express (115 halts)
|
