BE PROUD OF INDIA 01 2 Stations at the Same Location: Srirampur and Belapur are 2 different stations in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, which are both at the same location on the railway route but on opposite sides of the track. 02 Age: Indian Railways has had an operation span of nearly 170 years. 03 Air Cooling: Air Cooling was first introduced in 1st class coaches in 1874, in Great Indian Peninsular Railway 04 Busiest Station: Lucknow, with 64 trains per day. 05 Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus: CST in Mumbai caters to 33 million passengers annually and is the only terminus in the world to be listed as a monument of global heritage by UNESCO. 06 Computerised Reservations: First Reservation through the computer System commenced in New Delhi in the year 1986. 07 Dining Car: The Mumbai-Pune Deccan Queen has the oldest running dining car in Indian Railways. 08 Distance Covered: The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains daily on the Indian Railways daily equals 3½ times the distance to moon. 09 Electric Trains: 1st Electric coach ran on the 03 Feb 25, between Bombay VT and Kurla stations 10 Fares: Even after the Jun 14 hike, fares on long distance journeys on the IR can be considered cheapest in the world. For instance, 1,500 km journey on Delhi-Kolkata route by Kalka Mail costs around Rs 250. A similar journey would cost 10 x more on any budget train in Europe, which boasts of strong rail transport. 11 Fastest Train in India: New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express is the fastest train in India. The all air conditioned super fast train, clocks a maximum speed of 150 km/h on the Faridabad-Agra section. It also has the highest commercial speed - 89.87 km/h - and covers the 704 km New Delhi - Bhopal stretch in 7 hours 50 minutes. 12 First Rail Tunnel: Parsik Tunnel (1865) near Thane, is India’s first rail tunnel. 13 First Railroad: The first railroad was constructed by two Indians (Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Jaganath Shankerseth) and not the British. 14 First Railway Bridge: Dapoorie Viaduct (1854) on the Mumbai-Thane route is the first railway bridge in India. 15 Highest Bridge: The world’s highest rail bridge being constructed over Chenab river in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district (Chenab Bridge) will be ready by Dec 2015. Coming up at Kauri, it will be 359 meters (1,180 feet) above the river bed (5 times the height of Qutub Minar and 35 metres taller than Eiffel Tower). Also, Anjikhad Railway Bridge, to be completed in 2015 in Katra, Jammu-Kashmir is going to be the 4th highest in the world, at 186 meters (610 feet). Stretching across a length of 424 metres, the bridge on the Panval River in Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra is currently the tallest bridge in India. 16 Junction with Most Number of Routes Originating from it: Mathura junction with 7 routes - Broad Gauge (BG) line to Agra Cant, BG line to Bharatpur, BG line to Alwar, BG line to Delhi, Metre Gauge (MG) line to Achnera, MG line to Vrindavan and MG line to Hathras, Kasganj. 6 route junction - Bhatinda. 5 route junctions - Lucknow, Guntakal, Katni, Varanasi, Kanpur Central, Villupuram, Dabhoi and Nagpur. 17 Labour Force: Indian Railways is the world’s 9th largest commercial or utility employer, by number of employees, with over 1.4 million employees. It is also the India’s largest employer. 18 Last Stations in North-South-East-West direction: Northernmost railway station is Baramulla in Jammu & Kashmir. Westernmost is Naliya near Bhuj in Gujarat. Southernmost railway station is Kanyakumari, while the last station on the east of India is Ledo on branch line from Tinsukia. 19 Lavatory: Toilets on trains were first introduced in 1891 in 1st class and in 1907, in lower classes. 20 Least punctual train: Guwahati-Trivandrum Express is said to be the most unreliable long distance train in the country. The charted journey time is 65 hours and 5 minutes, but the average delay on a trip is about 10-12 hours. 21 Longest Bridge: Vembanad Rail Bridge 4.62 km in length in the state of Kerala connects Edappally and Vallarpadam in Kochi. It is the longest rail bridge in India and it is dedicated solely for freight. 22 Longest Non Stop Travel: Trivandrum - H Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express travels the 528 km stretch between Vadodara and Kota non stop. In the 2nd place is the Mumbai Rajdhani Express that travels non stop between New Delhi and Kota. 23 Longest Platform: Indian Railways owns the longest railway platform in the world at Kharagpur (West Bengal) with a length of 2,733 ft (1072.5 m) in length. 24 Longest Run by a Train: Vivek Express from Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari, travels a distance of 4273 km, making it the longest run, in terms of total time and distance in Indian Railways. 25 Longest Station Name: Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta, on the Arakkonam-Renigunta section, near Chennai. 26 Longest Tunnel: The country’s longest tunnel is Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel 11.215 km, that was completed in December 2012 in Jammu & Kashmir. The tunnel is yet to become functional railway route. Karbude on Konkan Railways, which is 6.5 km in length, previously held the title for the longest tunnel in India. 27 Most Number of Parallel Tracks / 3 Gauges at One Station: Seven parallel tracks between Bandra Terminus and Andheri - 10 km. Siliguri station on NFR holds the distinction of having three different gauges present. 28 Most Powerful Locomotive: Electric locomotive WAG-9 used for hauling heavy freight rakes is the most powerful locomotive in Indian Railways’ fleet. The 6,350 horsepower beast is homed at Gomoh, Ajni, Lallaguda, Tughlakabad and Bhilai. Modified version of WAG-9 named WAP 7 is IR’s workhouse for high speed passenger service. It is capable of hauling 24 coach trains at speeds ranging between 140 and 160 kmph. WAP-7 has similar horsepower as that of WAG-9 but comes with modified gear ratios for faster acceleration. 29 Number of Stations: The whole network has 7,083 stations 30 Oldest Operational Track: Ever since its origin in 1853, the rail service in India never turned back making it one of the oldest track in the world. 31 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, which finds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and got Heritage Award at the International Tourist Bureau, Berlin in March 2000. 32 Palace on Wheels: Indians were not allowed to board the Palace on Wheels luxury train for quite a while, when it was launched on Republic Day of 1982. 33 Passenger Load: The Indian Railways (IR) carries over 25 million passengers daily, which is perhaps more than the entire population of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania put together. Annually, Indian Railways ferries 7.2 billion passengers (nearly 6 x India’s current population). 34 Pre-Independence: About 42 Railway companies operated in the country, before Independence. 35 Property: Indian Railways has approximately 10.65 lakh acre of land. About 90% of this land is under Railway’s operational and allied usages. The total vacant land, at present is about 1.13 lakh acre. 36 Rail Museum: The National Rail Museum in Delhi set up in 1977, is a one of the unique museums in Asia. Sprawled over an area of 11 acres the museum has collections like antique steam engines, locomotives, models, carriages, photographs among other things. There are live exhibits as well as working and non working models. The added attraction is the toy train which runs across the museum. 37 Rail-cum-Road Bridge: Saraighat Bridge (1,492 m) is the first rail-cum-road bridge constructed over the Brahmaputra River in Guwahati, Assam. It was opened to passenger traffic in June 1963. 38 Railway Network: Though it is commonly believed, India doesn’t have the largest railway network in the World. India comes fourth with 64,000 km of railroad after US, Russia, and China. If the tracks were to be laid out from one point to another around the equator, it would circle it 1½ times. 39 Revenue: Indian Railways collected Rs 581 Crores in fines + charges on ticket less travel during the financial year 2011-12. 40 Sea Bridge: India’s 1st sea bridge, the Pamban Bridge is a cantilever bridge on the Palk Strait. It connects Rameshwaram on Pamban Island (Tamil Nadu) to mainland India. 41 Shortest Run by a Train: Scheduled services between Nagpur and Ajni stations situated just 3 km from each other - primarily meant for crew to travel from Nagpur station to the workshop at Ajni. 42 Shortest Station Name: Ib, near Jharsuguda in Odisha and Od, near Anand in Gujarat. 43 Slowest Train: Mettupalayam - Ooty Nilgiri Passenger, which runs at a speed of 10 kmph, 15 times slower than fastest running train. Since this train runs in hilly region, there are speed limits to comply. The one that comes close is Pratapnagar - Jambusar passenger, with a maximum speed of 12 km/h and an average speed of 11 km/h. It takes 4 hr for a journey of 44 km. 44 Steam Locomotives: The manufacture of steam locomotives in the country was stopped in 1972. 45 Total Number of Trains: Indian Railways run 19,000 trains every day. Some 12,000 trains are for passengers and 7,000 for freight. 46 Trains with Most Stops: The record for maximum number of stops by an Express/Mail train is held by Howrah - Amritsar Express; 115 halts, followed by Delhi - Howrah Janata Express with 109 halts and Jammu Tawi - Sealdah Express with 99 halts. 47 Transit Trains: Mumbai’s local trains are amongst the world’s few to have 15 coaches. Shanghai’s local trains come close with 12 coaches.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:22:37 +0000
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