History of railways in India......
Indian Railways is operated by the Ministry of Railways. It is the fourth largest railway network in the world by size. Indian Railway (IR) runs more than 20,000 passenger trains daily. From the first railway proposals in Madras in 1832 to now, the Indian railway achieves many milestones. Here is the list of some important historical events that the Indian railway passed through.
| Incident | Time/Facts |
|---|---|
| First proposal | Madras 1832 |
| Founded | On April 16th, 1853, when a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bombay's Bori Bunder for Thane. |
| Track gauge | 1676 mm; 1000 mm; 762 mm; 610 mm |
| Electrification | 26,269 km |
| Length | 115,000 km of track length over a route of 67,312 km |
| Headquarter | New Delhi, India |
| Stations | 8000 to 8500 |
| Nationalization | 1951 |
| First Railway Bridge | Dapoorie Viaduct on the Mumbai-Thane route |
| First Rail Tunnel | Parsik Tunnel |
| First Underground Railway | Calcutta Metro |
| Normal length of a passenger train | 24 coaches |
| First Computerized Reservation | New Delhi (1986) |
| Fastest Train | India New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express is the fastest train in India (runs at a speed up to 150 Km/ph) |
| First electric train | Ran between Bombay's Victoria Terminus and Kurla along the Harbour Line of CR, on February 3, 1925, a distance of 9.5 miles |
| Shortest Station Name | Ib, near Jharsuguda in Odisha and Od, near Anand in Gujarat |
| Longest Station Name | Venkatanarasimharajuvariipeta on the Arakkonam-Renigunta section near Chennai |
| Oldest Station | Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus |
| Oldest trains still running | Bangalore Mail has been running in various guises since 1864 |
| Highest railway station | Ghoom |
| Oldest running dining car | The Bombay-Pune Deccan Queen |
| Busiest Railway Station | Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus |
| Longest Run (Time) | Vivek Express from Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari travels a distance of 4273 |
| Shortest Run | Route between Nagpur and Ajni (3km) |
| Longest Run for Daily Train | Kerala Express (3054 km in 42.5 hrs) |
| Longest Non-Stop Run (Distance) | Trivandrum Rajdhani covering 528 km |
| Longest Railway Platform | Gorakhpur (1.35 km in length) |
| Longest Railway Bridge | Rail link between Idapalli railway station and ICTT, 4.62km |
| Tallest bridge | The Ghambir Khad bridge between Jammu Tawi and Udhampur is 77m tall. |
| Longest Tunnel | Karbude Tunnel of the Konkan Railway (6.5 km) |
| Oldest Preserved Locomotive | Fairy Queen (1855), still in working order |
| Daily Runs | About 10,000 trains |
| Daily Carries | More than 11 million passengers & 1 million tonnes of freight |
| Railway Station with all the Three Gauges | Siliguri Railway Station |
| People Employed | About 1.6 million people, fourth largest employer in World |
| Train with Maximum Number of Halts | Howrah-Amritsar Express (115 halts) |
| Stations across State Lines | Navapur (Maharashtra and Gujarat), Bhawani Mandi (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) |
| Northernmost railway station | Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir |
| Western most station | Naliya near Bhuj in Gujarat |
| Southernmost railway station | Kanyakumari |
| East most railway station | Ledo on branch line from Tinsukia |
| 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. |
| Longest non-stop travel/ Trains with most stops | Trivandrum - H. Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express travels the 528km stretch between Vadodara and Kota non-stop |
| First electric locomotive | 1908 |
| UNESCO World Heritage Sites | Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Mountain Railways of ( Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a narrow gauge railway in West Bengal) |
| First double Decker train | Flying Rani introduced in 2005 |
| Largest railway complex in India | Howrah Station |
| Train crosses the largest number of states | Navyug express between Mangalore and Jammu Tawi |
| Train crossed maximum number of zones | Ernakulam-Barauni |
| The largest distance entirely in one state | Kolhapur-Gondia Maharashtra Exp |
| Shortest distance between stations | Safilguda and Dayanand Nagar stations on the Secunderabad, 170m apart. |
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