General Knowledge Facts for Indian Railways

• Indian Railway is World’s fourth largest railway US, Russia and China. It carries some 23 million passengers everyday and around 1060 million tons of freight in a year.
• As on 31.03.2011, the route length of Indian Railways is around 1.14 Lakh kilometres.
• Among states, the highest route kilometres are in UP, which shares 13.6% of India’s total route kilometres. Next largest states in terms of route kilometres are Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
• Broad gauge (1676 mm) accounts for close to 85% of total route length. The share of meter gauge has and narrow gauge are 11.2 and 3.8% respectively.

Zones and Divisions

The number of Zones of Indian Railways was 6 before 1951. 2 more Zones were added in 1951. In 1952, the number of Zones became 9. At present Indian Railway has 16 Zones, however, Kolkata Metro, which is not a part of any zone is considered to be 17th Zone of Indian Railway. The making of Kolkata Metro as an independent zone was notified by the Railway Board in December 2010. The headquarters of the various zones are listed in below table:

Each Zone is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board.

Sanskriti Express

‘Sanskriti Express’ was the special exhibition train that was run to commemorate the 150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.

Duronto Trains

Duronto Trains were initially started by Lalu Prasad Yadav during his tenure as Railway Minister in 2004-05 as Sampark Kranti Expresses. Currently, there are 27 Duronto trains running in India.

Rajdhani Express

Rajdhani Express was introduced in 1969, for providing high-speed connections from various railway stations in the capital city of New Delhi to the capital cities of various states in India. First Rajdhani Express left New Delhi station for Howrah station to cover a distance of 1,445 km in 16 hours 55mins.

Fastest Train of India

The New Delhi Habibganj Shatabdi Express is fastest train of India running at 155 kilometers per hour. runs at a peak speed of 150 km/h, which makes it the fastest train in India. All Shatabdi trains cover the whole journey Up & Down on the same day

Garib Raths

Garib Ruth were introduced by the Indian Railways in 2005 to provide fully air-conditioned travel to those passengers who could not afford the expensive tickets of the fully air-conditioned coaches as in Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express. They are no-frill AC trains. First  Garib Rath train  journeyed from Saharsa, Bihar to Amritsar, Punjab.

5 Digit numbering System

From December 20, 2010, the railways is deploying a 5 digit numbering system instead of the 4 digit system. The need is due to the fact that the Indian Railways runs 10,000 trains daily. Only a prefix of the digit 1 will be added to the four-digit numbers of the existing trains to make the transition smoother. The special trains run to clear festivals and holiday rush shall have the prefix of 0 (zero)

Longest Rail Bridge of India

India’s largest rail bridges are

1. Bandra–Worli Sea Link, Mumbai
2. Mahatma Gandhi Setu, Patna
3. Vikramshila Setu, Bihar
4. Vembanad Rail Bridge.

North East Region Rail Development Fund

The North East Region Rail Development Fund is a non-lapsable fund approved in 2011 for National Projects in the North Eastern Region. The NERRDF is to be funded to the tune of 25% through Railway Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) and balance 75% by Ministry of Finance as non-dividend additionally to GBS. The funds to be provided as non-dividend bearing additional budgetary support by Ministry of Finance may be allocated at the beginning of the year.