Indian Railways and Railway Network History

Indian Railways, renowned worldwide for operating largest rail network is full of activity. The busy railway network is wholly owned by the Central Government of India. Indian railway serves over 20 million passengers every day.

Indian Railways history is really long and rich. It took birth during British rule in India. The need for fast mode of transport for troop movement created the need for Indian Railways. The first train was started on 16 April, 1853 with its route from Bori Bunder to Thane. This first train consisted of 14 carriages and was comfortably able to carry 400 passengers. As time passed, more and more passenger trains were introduced spreading all over the India from north to south, east to west thus by covering all the chief cities along the routes including Delhi, Chennai, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Kerala and Mumbai.

Indian Railways history says that somewhere in 1985 steam locomotives were introduced. This introduction of steam locomotives replaced diesel engines. However, Indian Railways saw the biggest revolution occurred in year 1995 when whole railway network was computerized.

Presently, Indian Railways has 3 different gauges depending upon the track region and railway traffic. The gauges are namely Meter Gauge, Broad Gauge and Narrow Gauge. Meter Gauge is used in places having less traffic, Broad Gauge is used in places where there’s heavy traffic and narrow gauge is usually used in mountain ranges areas like Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Nilgiri Mountain Railway. The 3 gauges are further categorized into 17 different Indian rail zones.

These 17 different rail zones are an important part of Indian Railways. The zones are North, Eastern, North East, Western, North East Frontier, Central, North Western, South Central, South, South Central, South Eastern, South East Central, West Central, North Central, South Western and East Coast

Every year huge numbers of trains are introduced in the Indian Railways so to offer smooth and convenient journey to passengers. Internet brought one of the biggest revolutions in Indian Railways with the inception of E-tickets and I-tickets. This has given great comfort to passengers by introducing the comfort of online booking system.