Facts: Indian Railways

Important facts about the Indian Railways:

• The first train on the Indian soil ran between Bombay and Thane on the 16 April 1853
• 42 Railway companies operated in the country before independence
• The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals to three and half times the distance to moon
• Indian Railways has about 63,028 route kms of track
• Indian Railways employs about 1.55 million people
• Indian Railways carries 13 million passengers and 1.3 million tonnes of freight everyday
• IR runs about 14,300 trains daily
• IR has about 7,000 railway stations
• The longest platform in the world is at Kharagpur and is 2,733 ft in length
• Nehru Setu on Sone River is the longest Railway Bridge
• Electric locomotives are manuactured at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan
• Coaches are manufactured at ICF/Chennai, RCF/Kapurthala and BEMP/Bengaluru
• The national Rail Museum at New Delhi was set-up in 1977
• People Employed in Indian Railway are about 1.6 million
• Stations across State Lines are Navapur (Maharashtra and Gujarat) and Bhawani mandi (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan)
• Classes of travel on Indian Railway: 1st AC, 2nd AC, 3rd AC, AC Chair Car, IInd sleeper and IInd ordinary
• Railway Station with all Three Gauges is Silguri Railway Station

First/Oldest/Longest 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 Railway 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 - 3 Feb 1925 (between Bombay VT and Kurla)
• Toilets on Trains were introduced in - 1897 (1st Class) and 1907 (lower Classes)
• Shortest Station Name - IB, Odisha
• Longest Station Name - Sri Venkatanarasimharajuvariapeta, Tamilnadu
• Busiest Railway Station - Lucknow (64 trains everyday)
• Longest Run, Time - Vivek Express (3715 km in Approx 71 hrs)
• Shortest Run, Distance - Route between Nagpur to Ajni (3 km)
• 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)
• Oldest Preserved Locomotive - Fairy Queen (1855), still in working order
• Indian Railways'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)