Indian Railways

Indian Railways (Hindi: Bh rat ya Rail), abbreviated as IR (Hindi: ..), is the central railway company of India, which owns and operates most of the country's rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India. Indian Railways has more than 64,215 kilometres (39,901 mi) of track and 7,083 stations. It has the world's fourth largest railway network after those of the United States, Russia and China. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country and carry over 30 million passengers and 2.8 million tons of freight daily. It is one of the world's largest commercial or utility employers, with more than 1.6 million employees. As to rolling stock, IR owns over 230,000 (freight) wagons, 60,000 coaches and 9,000 locomotives. Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multigauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities.

Organisational structure
Main article: Indian Railway organisational structure Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. As of May 2011, the Railway Ministry is headed by Manmohan Singh, the Union Minister for Railways, and assisted by two ministers of State for Railways. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board, which has a financial commissioner, five members and a chairman.[9]

Railway zones
Indian Railways is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions. The number of zones in Indian Railways increased from six to eight in 1951, nine in 1952, and finally 17 in 2010. 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.

A schematic map of the Indian Railways network, showing the various zones.

History of Indian Railways

The core of the pressure for building railways in India came from London in 1840s. For a century thereafter the basic policies and ultimate management of the Indian Railways were issued from London. The British built railways in India in order to intermesh the economies of the two countries. The building of railways in India brought about unintended as well as hoped for consequences in economic, political and military front. The new railways tied the the different parts of India together more closely than ever before.

On September 22, 1842, British civil engineer Charles Blacker Vignoles, submitted a Report on a Proposed Railway in India to the East India Company.[2] By 1845, two companies, the East Indian Railway Company operating from Calcutta, and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) operating from Bombay, were formed. The first train in India was operational on December 22, 1851, used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee. A few months later, on April 16, 1853, the first passenger train between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thane covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles) was inaugurated, formally heralding the birth of railways in India. And then the first passenger railway line in North India opened from Allahabad and Kanpur on March 3, 1859. This was followed in 1889, by the Delhi - Ambala Kalka line. The British government encouraged the setting up of railways by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of 5% during the initial years of operation. Once completed, the company would be passed under government ownership, but would be operated by the company that built them.

Start of Indian Railways

Following independence in 1947, India inherited a decrepit rail network. About 40 per cent of the railways then passed through the newly independent republic of Pakistan. A large number of lines had to be rerouted through Indian territory, and new construction had to be undertaken. Underinvestment and unproductive management and maintenance practices have sharply curtailed growth in route length[citation
needed]

. A total of forty-two separate railway systems, including thirty-two lines owned by the former Indian

princely states existed at the time of independence spanning a total of 55,000 km. These were amalgamated into theIndian Railways. In 1951, the rail networks were abandoned in favour of zones. A total of six zones came into being in 1952. As India developed its economy, almost all railway production units started to be built indigenously. Broad Gauge became the standard, and the Railways began to electrify most lines to AC. In 1985, steam locomotives were phased out. Under Rajiv Gandhi, reforms in the railways were carried out. In 1987, computerisation of reservation first was carried out in Bombay and in 1989 the train numbers were standardised to four digits. In 1995 the entire railway reservation was computerised through the railway's intranet. In 1998, the Konkan Railway was opened, spanning difficult terrain through theWestern Ghats. A Kolkata Metro has been built, and was followed by the Delhi Metro, with many other rapid transit systems under construction or planning. Now in India the longest super fast train is between Thiruvananthapuram to Guwahati. Its distance is nearly 3000 km.

Northern Indian Railway

The Northern Railway (NR) is one amongst the nine older zones of Indian Railways. Delhi, the capital city of India, serves as the headquarters of Northern Railway. The whole zone is divided into five divisions namely Delhi, Ferozpur, Ambala, Lucknow and Moradabad for smooth administration. Northern Railway is also acknowledged to have the largest route kilometers of track (6807 km) under its control consistently yet after the streamlining of the railways into the new structure of zones. On 14 April 1952, Northern Indian Railway came into being after amalgamation of Jodhpur Railway, Bikaner Railway, Eastern Punjab Railway, north-west of Mughalsarai and three divisions of the East Indian Railway. Northern Railway embraces states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh (Union Territory) in India. Not only this, NR is also known for operating world's largest route relay interlocking (RRI) at Delhi.

Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine,[1] first used in the early 19th century to distinguish between mobile and stationary steam engines. A locomotive has no payload capacity of its own, and its sole purpose is to move the train along the tracks. In contrast, some trains have self-propelled payload-carrying vehicles. These are not normally considered locomotives, and may be referred to as multiple units, motor coaches orrailcars. The use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight (see CargoSprinter). Vehicles which provide motive power to haul an unpowered train, but are not generally considered locomotives because they have payload space or are rarely detached from their trains, are known as power cars.

An early design of electric locomotiveshowing the steeplecab arrangement: North Eastern Railway No.1, England from 1905

Advantages of locomotives
There are many reasons why the motive power for trains has been traditionally isolated in a locomotive, rather than in self-propelled vehicles.[5]

Ease Should the locomotive fail, it is easy to replace it with another. Failure or maintenance of the motive power unit does not require taking the entire train out of service.

Maximum utilization of power cars Idle trains waste costly motive power resources. Separate locomotives enable costly motive power assets to be moved around as needed. Flexibility Large locomotives can be substituted for small locomotives where the grades are steeper and more power is needed. A 'passenger' locomotive can also be used for freight duties if needed, and vice versa. Obsolescence cycles Separating the motive power from payload-hauling cars enables one to be replaced without affecting the other. At times locomotives have become obsolete when their cars were not, and vice versa.

Safety In case of an accident, the locomotive may act as buffer zone for the rest of the train. If an obstacle is encountered on the line, the heavier mass of a locomotive is less likely to be deviated from its normal course. Also it may be safer in the event of fire especially with diesel locomotives. Noise A single source of tractive power, which means only motors in one place, means that the train will be quieter than with multiple unit operation, where one or more motors are located under every carriage. The noise problem is particularly present in diesel multiple units.

Locomotive classifications
[edit]Motive

power

Locomotives may generate their power from fuel (wood, coal, petroleum or natural gas), or they may take power from an outside source of electricity. It is common to classify locomotives by their source of energy. The common ones include:

Steam

In the 19th century the first railway locomotives were powered by steam, usually generated by burning coal. Because steam locomotives included one or more steam engines, they are sometimes referred to as "steam engines". The steam locomotive remained by far the most common type of locomotive until after World War II.[6] The first steam locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick; it first ran on 21 February 1804, although it was some years before steam locomotive design became economically practical.[

A stem locomotive at the Gare du Nord, Paris, 1930

Gasoline
Gasoline locomotives have been produced since the early 1900s

Diesel
Experimental diesel-powered locomotives were first built just after World War I. In the 1940s, they began to displace steam power on American railroads. As is the case with any vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine, diesel locomotives require some type of power transmission system to couple the output of the prime mover to the driving wheels. In the early days of diesel railroad propulsion development, electric, hydraulic and mechanical power transmission systems were all employed with varying degrees of success. Of the three, electric transmission has proved to be most popular, and although diesel-hydraulic locomotives have certain advantages and are continuously used in some European countries, most modern Diesel-powered locomotives are diesel-electric. Diesel locomotives require considerably less maintenance than steam, with a corresponding reduction in the number of personnel needed to keep the fleet in service.

Electric

The electric locomotive is supplied externally with electric power, either through an overhead pickup or through a third rail. While the capital cost of electrifying track is high, electric trains and locomotives are capable of higher performance and lower operational costs than steam or diesel power.[citation needed] Electric locomotives, because they tend to be less technically complex than diesel-electric locomotives, are both easier and cheaper to maintain and have extremely long working lives, usually 40 to 50 years[ Some electric locomotives can also operate off battery power to enable short journeys or shunting on needed] Battery-powered locomotives are used in mines and other non-electrified lines or yards.[citation underground locations where diesel fumes or smoke would endanger crews, and where external [cit electricity supplies cannot be used due to the danger of sparks igniting flammable gas.

Hybrid locomotives
Besides locomotives which use only a fuelled power source (e.g. an internal combustion engine), and a electrical engine,[20] there are also hybrids that additionally use a battery. Here, the battery acts as a temporary energy store, allowing e.g. the implementation of regenerative braking and switching off the hydrocarbon engine when idling or stationary (as used in automobiles such as the Toyota Prius).

Diesel locomotive
A diesel locomotive is a type of railroad locomotive in which the prime mover is adiesel engine, a reciprocating engine operating on the Diesel cycle as invented by Dr Rudolf Diesel. Several types of diesel locomotive have been developed, the principal distinction being in the means by which the prime mover's mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels (drivers).

Diesel locomotives offer significant operating advantages over steam locomotives[22]. They can safely be operated by one person, making them ideal for switching/shunting duties in yards (although for safety reasons many main-line diesel locomotives continue to have 2-man crews) and the operating environment is much more attractive, being much quieter, fully weatherproof and without the dirt and heat that is an inevitable part of operating a steam locomotive. Steam locomotives, by comparison, require intensive maintenance, lubrication and cleaning before, during and after use.

Moreover, maintenance and operational costs of steam locomotives were much higher than diesel counterparts even though it would take diesel locomotives almost 50 years to reach the same power output that steam locomotives could achieve at their technological height.[citation needed] Annual maintenance costs for steam locomotives accounted for 25% of the initial purchase price.

Steam engines also required large quantities of coal and water, which were expensive variable operating costs.[24] Further, the thermal efficiency of steam was considerably less than that of diesel engines

Transmission types
Unlike steam engines, internal combustion engines require a transmission to power the wheels. The engine must be allowed to continue to run when the locomotive is stopped.

Diesel-mechanical
A diesel-mechanical locomotive uses a mechanical transmission in a fashion similar to that employed in most road vehicles. This type of transmission is generally limited to low-powered, low speed shunting (switching) locomotives, lightweight multiple units and self-propelled railcars.