Essays

The first railway on Indian sub-continent ran over a stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane on 16 April 1853. The idea of a railway to connect Bombay with Thane, Kalyan and with the Thai and Bhore Gnats inclines first occurred to George dark, the Chief Engineer of the Bombay Government, during a visit to Bhandup in 1843. During the formal inauguration ceremony, 14 railway carriages carrying about 400 guests left Bori Bunder at 3.30 pm "amidst the loud applause of a vast multitude and to the salute of 21 guns".

The first passenger train steamed out of Howrah station destined for Hooghly, a distance of 24 miles, on 15 August 1854. Thus the first section of the East Indian Railway was opened to public traffic, inaugurating the beginning of railway transport on the Eastern side of the sub-continent. In South, the first line was opened on 1 July 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. In the North, a length of 119 miles of line was laid from Allahabad to Kanpur on 3 March 1859. The first section from hathras Road to Mathura Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19 October 1875. These small beginnings in due course developed into a network of railway lines all over the country. By 1880, the Indian Railway system had a route mileage of about 9000 miles. When India became independent in 1947, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951, the systems were nationalised as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Thus Indian Railways (IR) was born.

Today, Indian Railways has one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world. It transports 20 million passengers and more than 2 million tonnes of freight daily and is one of the world's largest commercial employers, with more than 1.6 million employes. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country, covering 6,909. Stations over a total route length of more than 63,327 kilometers. In terms of rolling stock, IR owns over 200,000 (freight) wagons, 50,000 coaches and 8,000 locomotives. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities.

Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. It is administered by the Railway Board, which has a financial commissioner, five members and a chairman. Its headquarters are in New Delhi. It is divided into zones, which are further sub divided into divisions. The number of zones in Indian Railways increased from six to eight in 1951, nine in 1952, and finally 16 in 2003. The Kolkata Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It r, administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.

The various zones of Indian Railways are Ccnii.il Railway (CR) within headquarters at Mumbai, East Central Railway (ECR) with headquarters at hajipur, East Coast Railway (ECoR) within headquarters ( Bhubaneswar, Eastern Railway (ER) with headquarters at Kolkata, Konkan Railway (KR) with headquarters at Navi Mumbai, North Central Railway (NCR) Mil) headquarters at Allahabad, North Eastern Railway (NER) with headquarters at Gorakhpur, North Western Railway (NWR) with headquarters at Jaipur, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) with headquarters at Guwahati, Northern Railway (NR) with headquarters at delhi.. South Central Railway (SCR) with headquarters at Secunderabad, '.ruin East Central Railway (SECR) with headquarters at Bilaspur, South eastern Railway (SER) with headquarters at Kolkata, South Western railway (SWR) with headquarters at hubli, Southern Railway (SR) with headquarters at Chennai, West Central Railway (WCR) with headquarters Jabalpur, and Western Railway (WR) with headquarters at Mumbai.

Indian Railways is the country's single largest employer. Staff are classified into gazetted (Group A and B) and non-gazetted (Group C and in employees. While the recruitment of Group A gazetted employees is carried out by the Union Public Service Commission through exams. Conducted by it, the recruitment to Group 'C' and 'D' employees is done through 19 Railway Recruitment Boards which are controlled by the raliway Recruitment Control Board (RRCB). The training of all cadres is entrusted and shared between six centralised training institutes.

As on 31 March 2008, the total length of track used by Indian railways was about 1, 11,600 km while the total route length of the network was 63,273 km. About 28 per cent of the route-kilometre and 42 per cent of the total track kilometre was electrified. Indian broad gauge—1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)—is the most widely used gauge in India with 96,851 km of track length (86.8 per cent of entire track length of all the gauges) and 51,082 km of route-kilometre (80.7 per cent of entire route-kilometre of all the gauges).

Indian Railways operates about 9,000 passenger trains and transports 20 million passengers daily across twenty-eight states and two union territories. Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya are the only states not connected by rail. A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches, but popular trains can have up to 24 coaches. Coaches are designed to commodate anywhere from 18 to 108 passengers, but during the holiday seasons and/or on busy routes; more passengers may travel in unresereved oaches. Most regular trains have coaches connected through vestibules. However, 'unreserved coaches' are not connected with the rest of the train via any vestibule.

Sereral  long (rains are composed of two to three classes of travel, Such as a 1^st and  2nd classes which have different pricing systems for various .amenities.. The classes in operation are First class AC (also called 1A), AC Two her (2A), First class (FC), AC Three tier (3A), AC Chair Car (CC) Exective Class Chair Car (EC), Sleeper Class (SL), Seater Class (2,S), and general (G) or Unreserved (UR). All these classes are not found on any single train. A special compartment known as the guard's cabin is found at the rear of the train. A standard passenger rake generally has our general compartments, two at the front and two behind, of winch one is exclusively for ladies. The exact number varies according to the demand and the route. A luggage compartment can also exist at the front or the back. In some trains a separate mail compartment is present. In long distance trains a pantry car is usually included in the centre. A new class Economy AC three tier is introduced in the Duronto trains.

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 kin in about 74 hours and 55 minutes. The Bhopa Shatabdi express is the fastest train in India which has a maximum speed Of 150 km/h on the Faridabad-Agra section.                       

Fares on the Indian Railways across categories are among the cheapest in the world. In the past few years, despite a recessionary environment. The Indian Railways have not raised fares on any class of service. On the contrary, there has been a minor dip in fares in some categories. This was possible because Indian Railways makes 70 per cent of its revenues and most of its profits from the freight sector, and uses these profits to cross-subsidies the loss-making passenger sector.

Ministry of Railways has planned to construct a new Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) covering about 2762 route km on two corridors—Eastern Corridor from Ludhiana to Sone Nagar and Western Corridor from Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Mumbai to Tughlakabad/Dadri— along with interlinking of two corridors at Khurja. Upgrading of transportation technology, increase in productivity and reduction in unit transportation cost are the focus areas for the project.