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| Facts about Indian Railways |
Facts about Indian Railways
Amazing facts about Indian Railways
The Indian Railways
1. On 16th April 1853 Saturday around 3.35 pm when first Indian railway was flagged off it traveled 34 Km. At present The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals to three & half times the distance to the moon.
2.-The 1st train in India on 16th April 1853 carried as many as 400 passengers in its 14 coaches on its debut run. Now Indian Railways carries over 13 million passengers & 1.3 million tones of freight everyday It runs about 14,300 trains daily.
3. The First train was hauled by three engines -- Sindh, Sahib and Sultan, the Steam Locomotives. At Present Most powerful locomotive is Electric locomotive WAG-9. The 6,350 horsepower beast, which is homed at Gomoh, Ajni, Lallaguda, Tughlakabad and Bhilai. Modified version of WAG-9 is named WAP 7. It is capable of hauling 24 coach trains at speeds ranging between 140 and 160 km per hour. Now we have Solar power run trains as well.
4. The Tents were erected at Thane station for welcome of the maiden journey of Indian railways. At present India has almost 7,500 railway stations, and many are equipped with sophisticated amenities for passengers.
5.The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was the 1st railway company of India. Now India Government is sole owner of the Indian Railways. Pre-Independence, about 42 Railway companies were operated in India.
6. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway had ordered a set of 8 locomotives from Vulcan Foundry, England, in the beginning of the railways operations in India. but now India is home for many kinds of Locomotives, ie., Electric Locomotives are manufactured at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan and Diesel Locomotives are manufactured in Varanasi. Yet soon India is going to get the first Bullet train from Japan.
8. Air Cooling : Air Cooling was first introduced in 1st class coaches in 1874 in Great Indian Peninsular Railway. At present there are 10 types of classes is in the Indian Railways from AC 1class to unreserved coaches.
9. India's First Luxury train is Palace on Wheels. Indians were not allowed to board the Palace on Wheels luxury train for quite a while when it was 1st launched on Republic Day of 1982. Now Indian Railways have 5 types of most amazing luxury trains.
Maharaja Express A Royal Journey
10.Comforts on wheels: Toilets on trains were first introduced in 1891 in 1st class and in 1909 in lower classes. Now some of the trains are equipped with most advanced toilet systems.
11. First Railroad : The first railroad was constructed by two Indians (Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Jaganath Shunkerseth) and not the British. Jaganath Shunkerseth was one of the 10 Directors of The Great Indian Peninsula Railway. On 18th Nov 1952 few Engineers and 10 directors of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway company had a test run of the 1st rail.
12. Oldest Working Locomotive : Indian Railways still has the oldest preserved locomotive in working order, the Fairy Queen which was made way back in 1855. It is the oldest functioning steam engine in the world. But The manufacture of steam locomotives in the country was stopped in 1972.
13. Underground Railway : First Underground Railway that was opened for public use was Calcutta Metro.24 October 1984. 4 Cities in India already have Metro Rail but 7 more cities are joining the club.
14 Computerized Reservations: The 1st Reservation through the computer System commenced in New Delhi in 1986. Now A mobile app system is introduced to track train schedules by Indian Railways in 2014.
15 The longest station name: Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta is on the Arakkonam-Renigunta section near Chennai. The shortest station names are Ib, near Jharsuguda in Odisha and Od, near Anand in Gujarat.
16 OMG!!! The Indian Railways website gets almost 12 Lakh hits per minute.
Hourly traffic on IRTC.com is more than annual traffic of some of the most popular Indian websites. It can support almost 5 million threads at one time.
17 Amazing: Stations across State Lines are Navapur (Maharashtra and Gujarat) and Bhawani Mandi (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan).
18. Railway Station with all the Three Gauges is Siliguri Railway Station. Lucknow is the busiest junction in the nation: 64 trains come in and move out, every day. Junction with most number of routes originating from it : Mathura junction with 7 routes.
19. Neverthless, Surekha Yadav née Surekha Shankar Yadav (born 2 September 1965) is the first female train driver for the Indian Railways in India, and also in Asia. She became India's first female train driver in 1988. she drove the Deccan Queen from Pune to CST.
