When was the Indian Railways inaugurated?

The formal inauguration ceremony was performed on 16th April 1853, when 14 railway carriages carrying about 400 guests left Bori Bunder at 3.30 pm amidst the loud applause of a vast multitude of people and to the salute of 21 guns.The first passenger train steamed out of Howrah station destined for Hooghly,a distance of 24 miles, on 15th August, 1854. Thus the first section of the East Indian Railway was opened to public traffic, inaugurating the beginning of railway transport on the Eastern side of the sub-continent.

In south the first line was opened on Ist July, 1856 by the Madras Railway Company. It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. In the North a length of 119 miles of line was laid from Allahabad to Kanpur on 3rd March 1859. The first section from Hathras Road to Mathura Cantonment was opened to traffic on 19th October, 1875.These were the small beginnings which is due course developed into a network of railway lines all over the country. By 1880 the Indian Railway system had a route mileage of about 9000 miles.

 

One of the earliest pictures of railways in India. The Thana station in Bombay

Indian Railways has a total state of monopoly on India's rail transport. It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world,transporting sixteen million passengers and more than one million tonnes of daily. IR is the world's largest commercial or utility with more than 1.6 million employees.

IR boasts of more than 7,500 railway stations in its periphery. It has a fleet of not less than 7800 locomotives, 40,000 coaches & 3,26,000 wagons. 9 pairs of Rajdhani and 13 pairs of Shatabdi Express Trains run on the rail tracks of India.The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country; the routes cover a total length of 63,140km (39,233 miles). As of 2002, IR owned a total of 216,717 wagons, 39,263 coaches and 7,739 locomotives a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains.

Some interesting facts:

1.The longest journey on the IR is from Jammu Tawi (North) to Kanya Kumari (South), a distance of about 4,751 kms. covered by Himsagar Express in about 66 hours

2.The longest platform in the world is at Khragpur and is 2,733 ft. in length.

3.Nehru Setu on river SONE is the longest Railway bridge

4. The longest tunnel is KARBUDE on Konkan Railways, which is 6.5 kms in length.

5.India’s first railway bridge is the Dapoorie Viaduct” on the Mumbai-Thane route.

6.India’s first Rail Tunnel is Parsik Tunnel.

7.India’s first ghats covered by the Rail lines are Thal and Bhore ghats

8.Calcutta Metro is the 1st and only underground railway system in India

9.Computerized Railway Reservation system started at Delhi in 1986

10.IR's first electric train ran on 3rd Feb 1925 between Bombay VT and Kurla.

11. Toilets on trains were introduced in 1891 in 1st class and in 1907 in lower classes

12. 42 Railway companies operated in the country before independence

13.

The Suburban trains in Mumbai handle more rush than any other suburban network in the world.