The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railway everyday, equals three & half times the distance to moon. The first train on Indian soil ran between Bombay and Thane on the 16th of April 1853.
Following are the some of the important Indian Railway Facts
- IR has about 63,028 route kms. of track
- IR employs about 1.55 million people
- It carries over 13 million passengers & 1.3 million tones of freight everyday
- It runs about 14,300 trains daily
- IR has about 7,000 railway stations
- The longest platform in the world is at Kharagpur and is 2,733 ft. in length
- Nehru Setu on Sone River is the longest Railway bridge
- 42 Railway companies operated in the country before independence
- Electric Locomotives are manufactured at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan
- Coaches are manufactured at ICF/Chennai, RCF/Kapurthala and BEML/Bangaluru
- The national Rail Museum at New Delhi was set-up in 1977
- People Employed in Indian Railway are about 1.6 million
- Stations across State Lines are Navapur (Maharashtra and Gujarat) and Bhawani Mandi (Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan)
- Classes of travel on Indian Railway: Ist AC, 2nd AC, 3rd AC, AC Chair Car IInd sleeper & IInd ordinary
- Railway Station with all the Three Gauges is Siliguri Railway Station
Also Read: 20 Reasons to Be Proud of Indian Railways
First/Longest/Oldest in Indian Railways
| First Passenger Train Ran On | 16th April 1853 (between Bombay to Thane) |
| First Railway Bridge | Dapoorie Viaduct on the Mumbai-Thane route |
| First Rail Tunnel | Parsik Tunnel |
| First Ghats Covered by the Rail lines | Thal and Bhore Ghats |
| First Underground Railway | Calcutta METRO |
| First Computerized Reservation System started in | New Delhi (1986) |
| First Electric Train ran on | 3rd Feb’ 1925 (between Bombay VT and Kurla) |
| Toilets on Trains were introduced in | 1891 (1st Class) & 1907 (lower classes) |
| Shortest Station Name | Ib (Orissa) |
| Longest Station Name | Sri Venkatanarasimharajuvariapeta (Tamil Nadu) |
| Busiest Railway Station | Lucknow (64 trains everyday) |
| Longest Run (Time) | Vivek Express (3715 km in Approx 71 hrs) |
| Shortest Run | Route between Nagpur to Ajni (3km) |
| Longest Run for Daily Train | Kerala Express (3054 km in 42.5 hrs) |
| Longest Non-Stop Run (Distance) | Trivandrum Rajdhani (528 km in 6.5 hrs) |
| Longest Railway Platform in the World | Kharagpur (2,733 ft in length) |
| Longest Railway Bridge | Nehru Setu on Sone River (10044ft in length) |
| Longest Tunnel | Karbude On Konkan Railway between Monkey hill & Khandala (6.5 km) |
| Oldest Preserved Locomotive | Fairy Queen (1855), still in working order |
| Indian Railway’s Fastest Train | Bhopal-Shatabdi (runs at a speed up to 140 Km/ph) |
| Train with Maximum Number of Halts | Howrah-Amritsar Express (115 halts) |
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