You lived your entire life travelling in trains, but we bet you didn’t know half of the things about the Indian Railways, the oldest system of India. So we thought we should bring to you 30 fun & interesting facts about the Indian Railways which we are sure will make you think differently about the trains, the staff, the officers and even the coach you last traveled in.
1. Indian Railways is 161 years old, introduced on 16th April 1853.
2. A book found in IIT Roorkee library states the 1st Indian train had run between Roorkee & Piran Kaliyar on December 22, 1851. Contrary to what other sources say including, Wikipedia!
3. Other sources say that the 1st Indian train ran from Bombay to Thane on 16th September, 1853 and this is what everyone is happy to believe.
4. Indian Railways is among the largest rail networks in the world, operated by the Indian government ‘alone’!
5. Indian Railways is one of the world’s largest railway networks with 115,000 kms of track over a route of 65,000 kms and 7,500 stations.
6. The total daily distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways equals three & half times the distance to moon!
Source7. The world’s 9th largest employer- People employed in the Indian Railways are about 1.4 million.
8. The first Underground Railway is the Calcutta Metro
Source9. There were no toilets in the trains until the Indian Railways received this amusing and angry letter from a passenger named, Okhil Chandra Sen. The transcript of this letter can be seen at the Indian Railway Museum.
You all should once thank him for contributing to a very important element of our lives on trains. :)
10. Lucknow is the Busiest Railway Station with 64 trains running, everyday.
Source11. Gorakhpur station is 1366m in length making itself the Longest Railway Platform in the world.
12. India’s longest tunnel is Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel 11.215 km, completed in December 2012 in Jammu & Kashmir.
(The tunnel is functional yet)
Source13. Fairy Queen is the oldest preserved locomotive in the world, functional since 1855. It has made its way into the Guinness World Records and won the Heritage Award at the International Tourist Bureau in Berlin.
Source14. Earlier, the Indian Railways used elephants to position the carriages at their designated location.
Source15. Bhopal-Shatabdi is the Fastest Train in India which runs at a speed up to 150 Km/ph.
Source16. You will never want to travel in Howrah-Amritsar Express as it has the maximum number of halts- 115! So make sure you sleep in the train as much as you can or skip travelling in it.
Source17. Metupalayam Ooty Nilgiri Passenger runs at 10kmph, 15 times slower than the fastest running train. Of course, it is the slowest train in India!
Source18. Ib station in Odisha has the shortest name of all stations on the Indian Railways system.
Source19. Shrirampur and Belapur are two different stations in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra which are at the same location on the railway route but on opposite sides of the track. :o
20. Diamond crossing in Nagpur is one of a kind, trains go East, West, North and South form here.
21. The Vivek Express covers the longest distance of 4286 km in nearly 82.30 hours between Dibrugarh Town – Kanyakumari.
Source22. The first railroad was actually constructed by two Indians – Jaganath Shunkerseth and Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy; not the British.
23. Indian Railways is in the process of building the new highest rail bridge across the river Chenab between Bakkal and Kauri in the Kashmir Railway route. This bride is 359 m (1,178 ft) above river bed and will be the highest arch bridge in the world.
Source24. Guwahati-Trivandrum Express is considered as the most unreliable long-distance train with the average delay on a trip of about 10-12 hours.
Source25. The national Rail Museum at New Delhi was set-up in 1977.
Source26. Why we find it easy to sleep on trains? Coaches are designed to bring the resonance frequencies of the suspension as close as possible to 72 bpm or 1.2 Hz. Why? It’s the frequency that the human body is most comfortable with i.e., the normal heartbeat!
27. A Railway Officer needs to be at the sight of ‘all’ Railway Accidents at all times. Even if they are on leaves.
Source28. Loco-pilots or train drivers get paid more than many senior officers in Railways. A typical Rajdhani driver has a monthly salary of almost 1 lac.
29. No train driver can jump off the train before any accident. They are to stay with the travelers they carry even in a case of a head on collision.
30. The New Delhi railway station has taken a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s largest route relay interlocking system to help divert train movements during periods of high traffic and volumes.
Feel like thanking the Indian Railways? Go ahead tell them on their online portal which goes through 1-2 Lakhs of hits every day, hence the busiest site you could ever imagine.
Ciao!
