Southern Railway is the first Railway Zone to be created in independent India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway was originally created in the British colonial times as Great Southern India Railway Co. founded in Britain in 1853 and registered in 1859. Its original headquarters was in Tiruchirappalli and was registered as a company in London only in 1890.
Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following divisions: Chennai,Trichy(Tiruchirapalli),Madurai, Salem(Coimbatore), Palakkad, and Thiruvananthapuram. It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 500 million passengers travel on the network every year. This section of Indian Railway is different from the rest of India as its revenue is derived from passengers and not freight.
For better administrative control and improved development and operational reasons, Railway Board approved creation of new Railway Division with Salem(Coimbatore) as headquarters in 2005 to improve railway infrastructure, facilities (lacking since several decades) and introduce better train services thus satisfying the long felt needs to railway passengers in and around surrounding areas, thus providing better conveniences to the railway traveller. The highest revenue yielding Coimbatore and tiruppur are now included in salem division. Now it is 4th largest of all the six.Southern Railway divisions, and carved out of Palakkad and Tiruchirapalli divisions. A large section of this railway was in Meter Gauge, compared to most of Indian Railway being in Broad Gauge. The main improvements currently in this railway are to convert all tracks to Broad Gauge, improvement of stations, platform covering, better catering stalls, and an automated signal system to avoid accidents. The single Chennai Central station handles a million passengers every day. Five stations, Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Palghat and Thiruvanathapuram are scheduled for upgrading in 2007.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Southern Railway
Southern Railway is the first Railway Zone to be created in independent India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway was originally created in the British colonial times as Great Southern India Railway Co. founded in Britain in 1853 and registered in 1859. Its original headquarters was in Tiruchirappalli and was registered as a company in London only in 1890.
Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following divisions: Chennai,Trichy(Tiruchirapalli),Madurai, Salem(Coimbatore), Palakkad, and Thiruvananthapuram. It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 500 million passengers travel on the network every year. This section of Indian Railway is different from the rest of India as its revenue is derived from passengers and not freight.
For better administrative control and improved development and operational reasons, Railway Board approved creation of new Railway Division with Salem(Coimbatore) as headquarters in 2005 to improve railway infrastructure, facilities (lacking since several decades) and introduce better train services thus satisfying the long felt needs to railway passengers in and around surrounding areas, thus providing better conveniences to the railway traveller. The highest revenue yielding Coimbatore and tiruppur are now included in salem division. Now it is 4th largest of all the six.Southern Railway divisions, and carved out of Palakkad and Tiruchirapalli divisions. A large section of this railway was in Meter Gauge, compared to most of Indian Railway being in Broad Gauge. The main improvements currently in this railway are to convert all tracks to Broad Gauge, improvement of stations, platform covering, better catering stalls, and an automated signal system to avoid accidents. The single Chennai Central station handles a million passengers every day. Five stations, Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Palghat and Thiruvanathapuram are scheduled for upgrading in 2007.
Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following divisions: Chennai,Trichy(Tiruchirapalli),Madurai, Salem(Coimbatore), Palakkad, and Thiruvananthapuram. It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 500 million passengers travel on the network every year. This section of Indian Railway is different from the rest of India as its revenue is derived from passengers and not freight.
For better administrative control and improved development and operational reasons, Railway Board approved creation of new Railway Division with Salem(Coimbatore) as headquarters in 2005 to improve railway infrastructure, facilities (lacking since several decades) and introduce better train services thus satisfying the long felt needs to railway passengers in and around surrounding areas, thus providing better conveniences to the railway traveller. The highest revenue yielding Coimbatore and tiruppur are now included in salem division. Now it is 4th largest of all the six.Southern Railway divisions, and carved out of Palakkad and Tiruchirapalli divisions. A large section of this railway was in Meter Gauge, compared to most of Indian Railway being in Broad Gauge. The main improvements currently in this railway are to convert all tracks to Broad Gauge, improvement of stations, platform covering, better catering stalls, and an automated signal system to avoid accidents. The single Chennai Central station handles a million passengers every day. Five stations, Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Palghat and Thiruvanathapuram are scheduled for upgrading in 2007.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Indian Standard Time
Today Indian Railways, and indeed, everybody and every agency in India, observe Indian Standard Time (IST), which is defined as being 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of UTC (formerly GMT) -- and hence also denoted as UTC+0530. In certain time-zone maps, IST is also designated E*. There is only one time zone for all of India. India does not observe any form of daylight saving time or any other seasonal adjustments to the time.
In the very early days of railways in India, local time was observed at each large city, in common with practice in most other countries at the time. Because of their importance as commercial and economic centres, Bombay time and Calcutta time assumed special importance and were followed for many official purposes in the late 19th century (Bombay Time from 1884), effectively forming two time zones for British India. Calcutta time was 5 hours, 30 minutes, and 21 seconds in advance of GMT, while Bombay Time was 4 hours and 51 minutes ahead of GMT. However, many railway companies standardized on using Madras time as being in between Bombay and Calcutta times, and often this, rather than Bombay time, was what was used in Indian timetables from the late 1880s onward, including the Newman's Indian Bradshaw, although this was far from universal.
In 1884, the World Meridian Conference at washington, DC, in the USA, set up the standard time zones as we know them today. Sandford Fleming, a Canadian, is generally credited with the proposal, although American and Canadian railways had by then already been observing standard time based on hour-wise time zones proposed by Charles F Dowd in 1863. It must be noted that the standardization of time zones was quite heavily promoted by the railway companies of the time in the United States and elsewhere because of the confusion and complexity of keeping track of local times in many different cities. British India did not adopt the standard time zones, however, until 1905 when the meridian passing through Allahabad at 82.5 degrees east longitude was picked as the central meridian for India, corresponding to a single time zone for the country at 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of GMT. This went into force on January 1, 1906. (Also for Sri Lanka, then Ceylon.) However, Calcutta time was officially maintained as a separate time zone until 1948. Bombay time was maintained, but only informally (although used for some railway purposes too), until about 1955.
After independence and the partition of British India, Pakistan stayed on Indian Standard Time for three years and adopted Pakistan Standard Time at 5 hours in advance of GMT in 1951. In India today, official time signals are generated by the Time and Frequency Standards Laboratory at the National Physical Laboratory for commercial and official use, and is based on atomic clocks. These clocks are tied into the world-wide system of clocks that support UTC or Universal Coordinated Time.
In the 19th century, timekeeping by the railways was by means of standard-issue pendulum clocks at stations and of course, the iconic station master's watch or timepiece. The clocks at different stations, at least the bigger ones, were generally kept in fair synchronization by telegraphic means -- a time signal was sent from the head office or the regional headquarters of a railway at a specified time every day, and the station clock was to be adjusted appropriately.
This allowed trains to be run according to published timetables without the confusion of accounting for myriad local times. (This is a system that is based on the one developed in the UK in 1852, in which time signals were sent telegraphically from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to various railway stations.) Four o'clock was a common time of day when the time signals were sent from the control office. The control office of course maintained its own principal clocks which kept official time for the railway.
By the turn of the century, all main-line stations were in telegraphic communication and thus could synchronize their clocks in this way to the official time. The convention developed of having the signals department of a railway be in charge of the chronometry and uniform timekeeping. Around 1925 omnibus telephone systems and train control circuits developed which further improved the synchronization of station clocks. Around 1952-1954 the railways generally shifted to a divisional system of working where the principal clocks were maintained at divisional headquarters instead of at the regional headquarters or head offices.
A significant development in the 1940s, especially after 1947, was the use of radio by the government and by commercial concerns, to broadcast time signals for various purposes. In the second half of the 20th century, the use of the time signal at 1600 hours generally fell into disuse and stationmasters and other staff were generally free to set their clocks according to the widely available radio time signals from broadcast stations.
From about 1952 onwards, drum clocks working on the electric mains supply became common in many stations, especially the suburban stations in Bombay. These clocks used a multi-polar hysteresis armature motor which, when excited by the 50Hz mains supply produced a low rpm output for use in the clocks. The first such clocks appeared at Churchgate, Bombay Central, and some WR suburban stations. Victoria Station and some other locations, on the other hand, used the 'Pulsynetic' pendulum clock (by Gents of Leicester, England) which could drive a number of half-minute slave dials.
Drum clocks and others relying on the stability of the 50Hz AC mains supply did have some problems as the frequency of the supply did occasionally vary when power plants came on line or went off the grid. This led to some of the station clocks being off by a couple of minutes or more in a day on occasion. This led to the practice of creating a separate special local supply of the 50Hz AC for important stations such as Churchgate, from about 1974 onwards. The 50Hz AC supply unit consisted of a DC-to-AC converter run from a crystal-controlled oscillator output divided digitally to produce a 50Hz 230V supply. Clocks run on this supply at Churchgate had errors of 1 second in 8 days. This system was adopted widely at many stations for maintaining the clocks' accuracy without manual intervention. In recent years, with the falling prices of electronics, crystal-controlled (quartz) digital clocks have been introduced with extremely good accuracy. Synchronization -- as needed -- is achieved by means of a special ring on the control telephones for all station masters in a given division at a chosen time -- often 0000 hours. Some stations are now experimenting with installing GPS-based clocks that keep time in synchronization with the GPS satellite signals.
Of course, while the running of trains generally does not require accuracy in timekeeping to better than a few seconds at best, the more recent rise of services such as GPS for location tracking and geospatial services has necessitated the use of extremely accurate timekeeping systems (which may be encapsulated today in fairly inexpensive handheld GPS receivers and other devices!), which ultimately rely on precise synchronization with UTC.
In the very early days of railways in India, local time was observed at each large city, in common with practice in most other countries at the time. Because of their importance as commercial and economic centres, Bombay time and Calcutta time assumed special importance and were followed for many official purposes in the late 19th century (Bombay Time from 1884), effectively forming two time zones for British India. Calcutta time was 5 hours, 30 minutes, and 21 seconds in advance of GMT, while Bombay Time was 4 hours and 51 minutes ahead of GMT. However, many railway companies standardized on using Madras time as being in between Bombay and Calcutta times, and often this, rather than Bombay time, was what was used in Indian timetables from the late 1880s onward, including the Newman's Indian Bradshaw, although this was far from universal.
In 1884, the World Meridian Conference at washington, DC, in the USA, set up the standard time zones as we know them today. Sandford Fleming, a Canadian, is generally credited with the proposal, although American and Canadian railways had by then already been observing standard time based on hour-wise time zones proposed by Charles F Dowd in 1863. It must be noted that the standardization of time zones was quite heavily promoted by the railway companies of the time in the United States and elsewhere because of the confusion and complexity of keeping track of local times in many different cities. British India did not adopt the standard time zones, however, until 1905 when the meridian passing through Allahabad at 82.5 degrees east longitude was picked as the central meridian for India, corresponding to a single time zone for the country at 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of GMT. This went into force on January 1, 1906. (Also for Sri Lanka, then Ceylon.) However, Calcutta time was officially maintained as a separate time zone until 1948. Bombay time was maintained, but only informally (although used for some railway purposes too), until about 1955.
After independence and the partition of British India, Pakistan stayed on Indian Standard Time for three years and adopted Pakistan Standard Time at 5 hours in advance of GMT in 1951. In India today, official time signals are generated by the Time and Frequency Standards Laboratory at the National Physical Laboratory for commercial and official use, and is based on atomic clocks. These clocks are tied into the world-wide system of clocks that support UTC or Universal Coordinated Time.
In the 19th century, timekeeping by the railways was by means of standard-issue pendulum clocks at stations and of course, the iconic station master's watch or timepiece. The clocks at different stations, at least the bigger ones, were generally kept in fair synchronization by telegraphic means -- a time signal was sent from the head office or the regional headquarters of a railway at a specified time every day, and the station clock was to be adjusted appropriately.
This allowed trains to be run according to published timetables without the confusion of accounting for myriad local times. (This is a system that is based on the one developed in the UK in 1852, in which time signals were sent telegraphically from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to various railway stations.) Four o'clock was a common time of day when the time signals were sent from the control office. The control office of course maintained its own principal clocks which kept official time for the railway.
By the turn of the century, all main-line stations were in telegraphic communication and thus could synchronize their clocks in this way to the official time. The convention developed of having the signals department of a railway be in charge of the chronometry and uniform timekeeping. Around 1925 omnibus telephone systems and train control circuits developed which further improved the synchronization of station clocks. Around 1952-1954 the railways generally shifted to a divisional system of working where the principal clocks were maintained at divisional headquarters instead of at the regional headquarters or head offices.
A significant development in the 1940s, especially after 1947, was the use of radio by the government and by commercial concerns, to broadcast time signals for various purposes. In the second half of the 20th century, the use of the time signal at 1600 hours generally fell into disuse and stationmasters and other staff were generally free to set their clocks according to the widely available radio time signals from broadcast stations.
From about 1952 onwards, drum clocks working on the electric mains supply became common in many stations, especially the suburban stations in Bombay. These clocks used a multi-polar hysteresis armature motor which, when excited by the 50Hz mains supply produced a low rpm output for use in the clocks. The first such clocks appeared at Churchgate, Bombay Central, and some WR suburban stations. Victoria Station and some other locations, on the other hand, used the 'Pulsynetic' pendulum clock (by Gents of Leicester, England) which could drive a number of half-minute slave dials.
Drum clocks and others relying on the stability of the 50Hz AC mains supply did have some problems as the frequency of the supply did occasionally vary when power plants came on line or went off the grid. This led to some of the station clocks being off by a couple of minutes or more in a day on occasion. This led to the practice of creating a separate special local supply of the 50Hz AC for important stations such as Churchgate, from about 1974 onwards. The 50Hz AC supply unit consisted of a DC-to-AC converter run from a crystal-controlled oscillator output divided digitally to produce a 50Hz 230V supply. Clocks run on this supply at Churchgate had errors of 1 second in 8 days. This system was adopted widely at many stations for maintaining the clocks' accuracy without manual intervention. In recent years, with the falling prices of electronics, crystal-controlled (quartz) digital clocks have been introduced with extremely good accuracy. Synchronization -- as needed -- is achieved by means of a special ring on the control telephones for all station masters in a given division at a chosen time -- often 0000 hours. Some stations are now experimenting with installing GPS-based clocks that keep time in synchronization with the GPS satellite signals.
Of course, while the running of trains generally does not require accuracy in timekeeping to better than a few seconds at best, the more recent rise of services such as GPS for location tracking and geospatial services has necessitated the use of extremely accurate timekeeping systems (which may be encapsulated today in fairly inexpensive handheld GPS receivers and other devices!), which ultimately rely on precise synchronization with UTC.
Rack Railway Systems
Rack railway systems use a geared wheel on the loco to engage with a rack, a toothed rail or rails set in the track, where the grade is too steep for the normal adhesion (friction) between wheels and rails to be used.
A 'rack and pinion' system usually refers to a pure rack system where all the track in the system is provided with a rack, including at points and crossovers. A 'rack and adhesion' system is one where not all of the track has a rack, and normal working using adhesion or friction between the rails and the driver wheels of the loco is used in some parts. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a rack and adhesion railway.
Among different kinds of rack systems are the 'Abt system' using a central rack rail or rails with two or more rows of teeth that are offset from one another, the 'Riggenbach' or 'Riggi' system where the rack is formed by short cross-bars attached to two parallel rails much like a ladder, and the 'Strub' system which has a single rack rail with teeth cut into it. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was supposed to have the Riggenbach system at first, but for various reasons ended up with the Abt system for its rack.
A 'rack and pinion' system usually refers to a pure rack system where all the track in the system is provided with a rack, including at points and crossovers. A 'rack and adhesion' system is one where not all of the track has a rack, and normal working using adhesion or friction between the rails and the driver wheels of the loco is used in some parts. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway is a rack and adhesion railway.
Among different kinds of rack systems are the 'Abt system' using a central rack rail or rails with two or more rows of teeth that are offset from one another, the 'Riggenbach' or 'Riggi' system where the rack is formed by short cross-bars attached to two parallel rails much like a ladder, and the 'Strub' system which has a single rack rail with teeth cut into it. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was supposed to have the Riggenbach system at first, but for various reasons ended up with the Abt system for its rack.
Women in IR
Yes, of course. Although the overwhelming majority of drivers of locomotives and EMUs are men, in recent years a few women have become drivers. Since the mid-1980s or so, there have been a few women drivers and assistant drivers of goods and passenger locomotives (Nagpur, Waltair, Kharagpur, Adra, etc.), and several who pilot shunters. Kalyan has a woman WCG-2 driver, For EMUs, Ms Surekha Yadav made headlines as the first woman to drive an EMU in the Mumbai system in 2001 (it was a Dombivli local to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai). She started as a goods and shunter driver in 1986.
There are many women who work in other operational positions, as station staff, signal staff, and so on. Curiously, women stationmasters are rare and found only in suburban sections of SR. In the non-operational roles (administration, management, etc.) there are plenty of women employed by IR -- it's not rare at all.
Women porters are quite rare. Wankaner is one station which is said to have had many women porters in the 1980s. (Situation today is unclear.) Margoa is another station where there are said to be (or to have been) some women porters. Women have always been present in significant numbers alongside men in other occupations involving manual labour, however, including construction activities and such. In steam days, there were many women employed in the manual coaling of steam locomotives.
There are many women who work in other operational positions, as station staff, signal staff, and so on. Curiously, women stationmasters are rare and found only in suburban sections of SR. In the non-operational roles (administration, management, etc.) there are plenty of women employed by IR -- it's not rare at all.
Women porters are quite rare. Wankaner is one station which is said to have had many women porters in the 1980s. (Situation today is unclear.) Margoa is another station where there are said to be (or to have been) some women porters. Women have always been present in significant numbers alongside men in other occupations involving manual labour, however, including construction activities and such. In steam days, there were many women employed in the manual coaling of steam locomotives.
RPF - GRP
The RPF (Railway Protection Force) and the GRP (Government Railway Police) have different functions. The RPF is a security force directly under the union government's Ministry of Railways, and its primary responsibility is to safeguard and protect railway property, including rolling stock, the permanent way, and station or yard premises, from damage or sabotage and to investigate incidents of vandalism, theft, etc., of IR assets and property entrusted to it (i.e., freight).
The GRP, on the other hand, is a police organization under the control of the state government in each state, and its primary mission is the maintenance of law and order and ensuring passenger safety on board trains and on IR property. Thus the GRP concerns itself with robberies or other criminal incidents on board trains or on railway premises, missing persons, injuries or deaths in connection with the railways, and has police powers in each state to arrest persons, register criminal cases, etc. (Such police powers for enforcing local law and order are constitutionally not available to any body acting under the control of the union government.)
The GRP, on the other hand, is a police organization under the control of the state government in each state, and its primary mission is the maintenance of law and order and ensuring passenger safety on board trains and on IR property. Thus the GRP concerns itself with robberies or other criminal incidents on board trains or on railway premises, missing persons, injuries or deaths in connection with the railways, and has police powers in each state to arrest persons, register criminal cases, etc. (Such police powers for enforcing local law and order are constitutionally not available to any body acting under the control of the union government.)
IR - New Call Centres
The new call center facility that has been introduced by Indian rail can be accessed by people by dialing 139. People can check train ticket reservation details, train arrival-departure times, availability of berths and fare enquiries.. The initial availability is in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the Union Railway Minister.
The other zones namely the western and southern zones by August and in eastern zone will start by September . The phone calls to 139 can only be made from landline, wireless and WLL services of BSNL and MTNL phone services. This is because the higher cost of the other phone service providers. Call Rates are as follows: Four metros, the charges are Rs 1.20 for 3 minutes pulse On furter pulse the charges are in the following blocks Rs 2.40 (for an enquiry call lasting 3-6 minutes), Rs. 3.60 (for 6-9 minutes duration) and so on. Non-metros, the charges are Rs 1.20 for one minute pulse on further pulse the charges are in the following blocks charges would be Rs 2.40 (for an enquiry call lasting 1-2 minutes), Rs 3.60 (for 2-3 minutes) and so on. Which is a little expensive.
The other zones namely the western and southern zones by August and in eastern zone will start by September . The phone calls to 139 can only be made from landline, wireless and WLL services of BSNL and MTNL phone services. This is because the higher cost of the other phone service providers. Call Rates are as follows: Four metros, the charges are Rs 1.20 for 3 minutes pulse On furter pulse the charges are in the following blocks Rs 2.40 (for an enquiry call lasting 3-6 minutes), Rs. 3.60 (for 6-9 minutes duration) and so on. Non-metros, the charges are Rs 1.20 for one minute pulse on further pulse the charges are in the following blocks charges would be Rs 2.40 (for an enquiry call lasting 1-2 minutes), Rs 3.60 (for 2-3 minutes) and so on. Which is a little expensive.
Hospital on Wheels - IR
The Minister of State for Railways Shri Naranbhai J. Rathwa, Chairman, Impact India Foundation, Shri A.H.Tobaccowala and the Secretary General of Rajeev Gandhi Foundation, Shri Manmohan Malhotra were present on the occasion.
The Railways Minister said that he new Lifeline Express Train would remain for four days at National Rail Museum, Chanakayapuri, New Delhi for public display.
Shri Lalu Prasad announced that IR is planning to launch another train 'Red Ribbon Express' in cooperation with National Aids Control Organization very soon to launch the campaign of awareness about the most deadly disease 'AIDS' all over India.
Smt. Sonia Gandhi, while inaugurating new state-of-the-art Lifeline Express, commended the noble project by Lifeline Express and expressed her gratitude to the Indian Railways for supporting the venture.
After so many years of successful journeys of palace on wheels Indian Railways now launched Hospital on Wheels. Today Indian Railways donated the new five coach hospital on tracks - Lifeline Express to Impact India Foundation and further contributed into the development of helth infrastructure in our country.
On this occasion, Lalu prasad yadav- the railways minister said here that Impact India Foundation with the cooperation of Indian Railways have provided medical services free of cost to nearly 4,50,000 persons in remote and rural interiors of India where medical facilities are almost non-existent. Now with this Lifeline Express on tracks they also can get medical services in very remote and rural areas of India. He further added that Lifeline Express, with its successful mission to provide medical facilities to the poor people of far-flung areas, has now been included in the school syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Education. The Lifeline Express has a main operation theatre with three operating tables for conducting all free of cost surgeries like cataract, squints, micro surgeries of the inner ear, correction of cleft lip and orthopedic surgeries for deformed limbs. Train has one more operation theatre with two operating tables and four recovery beds and also an ophthalmic testing room, laboratory, X-Ray.
New coaches for this train are state-of-the-art and unique in many senses. They are first of its kind anywhere in the world and are especially designed for Indian Railways by Integral Coach Factory, Perambur. Cost of product for each coach is around Rs.5 crores with latest technology integrated.
The Railways Minister said that he new Lifeline Express Train would remain for four days at National Rail Museum, Chanakayapuri, New Delhi for public display.
Shri Lalu Prasad announced that IR is planning to launch another train 'Red Ribbon Express' in cooperation with National Aids Control Organization very soon to launch the campaign of awareness about the most deadly disease 'AIDS' all over India.
Smt. Sonia Gandhi, while inaugurating new state-of-the-art Lifeline Express, commended the noble project by Lifeline Express and expressed her gratitude to the Indian Railways for supporting the venture.
After so many years of successful journeys of palace on wheels Indian Railways now launched Hospital on Wheels. Today Indian Railways donated the new five coach hospital on tracks - Lifeline Express to Impact India Foundation and further contributed into the development of helth infrastructure in our country.
On this occasion, Lalu prasad yadav- the railways minister said here that Impact India Foundation with the cooperation of Indian Railways have provided medical services free of cost to nearly 4,50,000 persons in remote and rural interiors of India where medical facilities are almost non-existent. Now with this Lifeline Express on tracks they also can get medical services in very remote and rural areas of India. He further added that Lifeline Express, with its successful mission to provide medical facilities to the poor people of far-flung areas, has now been included in the school syllabus of the Central Board of Secondary Education. The Lifeline Express has a main operation theatre with three operating tables for conducting all free of cost surgeries like cataract, squints, micro surgeries of the inner ear, correction of cleft lip and orthopedic surgeries for deformed limbs. Train has one more operation theatre with two operating tables and four recovery beds and also an ophthalmic testing room, laboratory, X-Ray.
New coaches for this train are state-of-the-art and unique in many senses. They are first of its kind anywhere in the world and are especially designed for Indian Railways by Integral Coach Factory, Perambur. Cost of product for each coach is around Rs.5 crores with latest technology integrated.
IR Network Maps
The IR route map below is divided into several sections. Click on the map at any point to get an enlarged view of the route map for the area around there. These maps are low-resolution sections of an IR route map created by Samit Roychoudhury. The full high-resolution version is available in printed form from Samit.
Indian Railway Organization
Indian Railways is a department of the Government, being owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways rather than a private company. As of 2008, the Railway Ministry is headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Union Minister for Railways and assisted by two junior Ministers of State for Railways, R. Velu and Naranbhai J. Rathwa. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board, which has six members and a chairman. Each of the sixteen zones is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration. In addition to the zones, the six production units (PUs) are each headed by a General Manager (GM), who also reports directly to the Railway Board. In addition to this the Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE), Metro Railway, Calcutta and construction organisation of N F Railway are also headed by a General Manager. CORE is located at Allahabad. This organisation undertakes electrification projects of Indian Railway and monitors the progress of various electrification projects all over the country.
Apart from these zones and production units, a number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are under the administrative control of the ministry of railways. These PSU units are:
1. Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India
2. Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation
3. Konkan Railway Corporation
4. Indian Railway Finance Corporation
5. Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
6. Railtel Corporation of India – Telecommunication Networks
7. RITES Ltd. – Consulting Division of Indian Railways
8. IRCON International Ltd. – Construction Division
9. Rail Vikas Nigam Limited
10. Container Corporation of India Limited
11. Rail Land Development Authority –for commercial development of vacant railway land, is a statutory authority formed through an amendment of the Railways' Act, 1989
12. Centre for Railway Information Systems is an autonomous society under Railway Board, which is responsible for developing the major software required by Indian Railways for its operations.
Apart from these zones and production units, a number of Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) are under the administrative control of the ministry of railways. These PSU units are:
1. Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India
2. Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation
3. Konkan Railway Corporation
4. Indian Railway Finance Corporation
5. Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
6. Railtel Corporation of India – Telecommunication Networks
7. RITES Ltd. – Consulting Division of Indian Railways
8. IRCON International Ltd. – Construction Division
9. Rail Vikas Nigam Limited
10. Container Corporation of India Limited
11. Rail Land Development Authority –for commercial development of vacant railway land, is a statutory authority formed through an amendment of the Railways' Act, 1989
12. Centre for Railway Information Systems is an autonomous society under Railway Board, which is responsible for developing the major software required by Indian Railways for its operations.
Railway Zones
Indian Railway Zones:
†Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai). It comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board.
The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway. Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven divisions.
[7/02] Indian Railways is divided for administrative convenience into several regional railways. Until recently there were 9 zones, and this structure had not changed much for four decades. Recently, 7 new zones have been created, giving a total of 16.
The nine older railway zones are:
* Northern Railway (NR)
* North Eastern Railway (NER)
* Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR, sometimes NEFR)
* Western Railway (WR)
* Southern Railway (SR)
* South Central Railway (SCR)
* South Eastern Railway (SER)
* Eastern Railway (ER)
* Central Railway (CR)
The 7 new zones are:
* South Western Railway (SWR)
* North Western Railway (NWR)
* West Central Railway (WCR)
* North Central Railway (NCR)
* South East Central Railway (SECR)
* East Coast Railway (ECoR)
* East Central Railway (ECR)
For their headquarters and constitution in terms of divisions please see below.
Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai), although it still comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board. It has been proposed [12/04] to merge it with IR because of its financial situation with high debt. At present [5/99] it consists of a single 760km route from Roha to Mangalore along the western coast of India (the Konkan region). The route is a single-line track (*), and currently not electrified. It has been designed for high-speed traffic (160 km/h). It is now [5/99] open to goods and passenger traffic. KR does not have divisions like the other IR zones, but it has two regions with headquarters at Ratnagiri and Karwar. The Ratnagiri region extends from Roha to Sawantwadi, while the Karwar region extends from Pernem to Thokur (the latter being where SR territory begins, a few stations north of Mangalore).
Note: Although KR is currently single-line, KR and SCR lines run parallel from Majorda to Madgaon, making that section a double-line.
The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by IR, but does not belong to any of the zones; it is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.
History of Indian Railways
A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832, but no further steps were taken for more than a decade. In 1844, the Governor-General of India Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India. Two new railway companies were created and the East India Company was asked to assist them. Interest from investors in the UK led to the rapid creation of a rail system over the next few years. The first train in India became operational on 22 December 1851, and was used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee. A year and a half later, on 16 April 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thane. Covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles), it was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh and Sultan. This was the formal birth of railways in India.
A view of the Burdwan Railway Station in 1855
A view of the Burdwan Railway Station in 1855
The British government encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of five percent during the initial years of operation. Once established, the company would be transferred to the government, with the original company retaining operational control. By 1875, about £95 million were invested by British companies in Indian guaranteed railways. The route mileage of this network was about 14,500 km (9,000 miles) by 1880, mostly radiating inward from the three major port cities of Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta ( Kolkata). By 1895, India had started building its own locomotives, and in 1896 sent engineers and locomotives to help build the Uganda Railway. Soon various independent kingdoms built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. A Railway Board was constituted in 1901, but decision-making power was retained by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon. The Railway Board operated under aegis of the Department of Commerce and Industry and had three members: a government railway official serving as chairman, a railway manager from England and an agent of one of the company railways. For the first time in its history, the Railways began to make a tidy profit. In 1907, almost all the rail companies were taken over by the government.
The following year, the first electric locomotive appeared. With the arrival of the First World War, the railways were used to meet the needs of the British outside India. By the end of the First World War, the railways had suffered immensely and were in a poor state. The government took over the management of the Railways and removed the link between the financing of the Railways and other governmental revenues in 1920, a practice that continues to date with a separate railway budget.
The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. At the time of independence in 1947, about 40 per cent of the railways then went to the newly independent republic of Pakistan. A total of forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated as a single unit which was christened as the Indian Railways.
The existing rail networks were abandoned in favour of zones in 1951 and a total of six zones came into being in 1952. As the economy of India improved, almost all railway production units were indigenised. By 1985, steam locomotives were phased out in favour of diesel and electric locomotives. The entire railway reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.
Indian Railways is one of the largest employers in the world. Very few corporate entities, public or private, have a larger workforce.
A view of the Burdwan Railway Station in 1855
A view of the Burdwan Railway Station in 1855
The British government encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of five percent during the initial years of operation. Once established, the company would be transferred to the government, with the original company retaining operational control. By 1875, about £95 million were invested by British companies in Indian guaranteed railways. The route mileage of this network was about 14,500 km (9,000 miles) by 1880, mostly radiating inward from the three major port cities of Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) and Calcutta ( Kolkata). By 1895, India had started building its own locomotives, and in 1896 sent engineers and locomotives to help build the Uganda Railway. Soon various independent kingdoms built their own rail systems and the network spread to the regions that became the modern-day states of Assam, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. A Railway Board was constituted in 1901, but decision-making power was retained by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon. The Railway Board operated under aegis of the Department of Commerce and Industry and had three members: a government railway official serving as chairman, a railway manager from England and an agent of one of the company railways. For the first time in its history, the Railways began to make a tidy profit. In 1907, almost all the rail companies were taken over by the government.
The following year, the first electric locomotive appeared. With the arrival of the First World War, the railways were used to meet the needs of the British outside India. By the end of the First World War, the railways had suffered immensely and were in a poor state. The government took over the management of the Railways and removed the link between the financing of the Railways and other governmental revenues in 1920, a practice that continues to date with a separate railway budget.
The Second World War severely crippled the railways as rolling stock was diverted to the Middle East, and the railway workshops were converted into munitions workshops. At the time of independence in 1947, about 40 per cent of the railways then went to the newly independent republic of Pakistan. A total of forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian princely states, were amalgamated as a single unit which was christened as the Indian Railways.
The existing rail networks were abandoned in favour of zones in 1951 and a total of six zones came into being in 1952. As the economy of India improved, almost all railway production units were indigenised. By 1985, steam locomotives were phased out in favour of diesel and electric locomotives. The entire railway reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.
Indian Railways is one of the largest employers in the world. Very few corporate entities, public or private, have a larger workforce.
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