History of Indian Railways Developments in the long run Push for intelligent controlling systems Overview till date

1. HISTORY OF
INDIAN
RAILWAYS
The story of Growth and Modernisation.......

2. Wagons were relatively common in Europe
from about 1500 through 1800.

3. Mechanised rail transport systems first appeared in England
in the 1820’s. These systems, which made use of steam
locomotive, were critical to the industrial revolution and to
the development of export economics across the world.

4. The core of the pressure for building railway in India came
from London. The history of Indian Railway starts from
1822 when the first proposal for the railway in India was
made for Madras, but somehow it could not take place.

5. 1832
The first rail-road idea in India was
conceived in the Madras
Presidency in 1831-32. The
promoters of a corporation led by
Sir Macdonald Stephenson made
the first plans for building railways
in India

6. 1849
Great Indian Peninsular Railway
incorporated by an act of Parliament.

7. 1852
Construction of line out of Bombay begins

8. 1853
The journey of railways in Indian sub-continent
started modestly in 1853 with 34 kms. Iron wheels
rolled on rails on 16th April, 1853, where the first-
ever train, with a capital of Rs 3.8 million, carrying
400 people in 14 carriages, covered the 21-mile
distance in about 75 minutes from Bombay
(Mumbai) to Thane.

9. 1854
First Passenger train in the eastern section
is operated, from Howrah to Hoogly.

10. 1856
First train in the southern region was
operated by Madras Railway Company.

11. 1859
First train in the north was operated from
Allahabad to Kanpur.

12. 1862
Jamalpur locoworks established

13. 1864
First Train into Delhi.

14. 1870
Connectivity between Bombay and Calcutta.

15. 1873
The world’s first commercial meter gauge
service was started between Delhi and
Rewari.

16. 1879
India had a total of 14920 kms of railway
line.

17. 1888
Construction of Bombay’s Victoria
Terminus building is completed, today
named as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

18. 1899
Jamalpur workshop officially begin its
production of steam locomotives.

19. 1901
Sir Thomas Robertson Committee submits
recommendations on administration and
working of Railways.

20. 1903
Interlocking was introduced for 9 stations,
this was safety aspect which was taken up.

21. 1905
Railway Board formalised, the main board
which is controlling the total operations
and policies of the railways.

22. 1906
The general rules were framed and Indian
Standard Time came into force for
timekeeping in British India.

23. 1915
• First ever diesel locomotive in India.
• Some more things in the case of safety
aspect were taken up, they were in the
form of vacuum breaking systems, track
circuiting systems or the telephones which
were provided for the controlling of the
operations of trains on the tracks.

24. 1920
The East India Railway Committee points out
the need for unified management of the
entire Railway system.

25. 1925
First electric railway got operated.

26. 1931
Total trackage in India at about 43,000 miles.

27. 1936
Betterment of passenger facilities. It was in
terms of air conditioned facilities being
provided.

28. 1937
Post of Minister for Transport &
Communications was created.

29. 1940
India had 4th longest Railway network in the
world.

30. 1945
• Indian Railway Standards renamed as
Indian Government Railway Standard.
(Before that most of the standards which
was adopted were from British India and
the British Standards which have been
followed in their country.)

31. 1956
Railway Board Expanded

32. 1957
• There was certain development in the
area of research and other design aspects.
They were in terms of RDSO.
• Indian Railway Institute of Signal
engineering telecommunications
established at Secunderabad.

33. 1959
• Permanent way training school setup.
• Fans and lights finally became standard
fixtures in all passenger coaches, including third
class.

34. 1961
Chittaranjan Locomotive Works (CLW)
started producing electric locomotives.

35. 1974
IRS standards for rails laid down.

36. 1977
Concrete sleepers came into use.

37. 1984
Mumbai Rajdhani becomes the first long
distance train with air brakes.

38. 1986
• Computerised ticketing and reservation
introduced, at New Delhi.
• Telecom division of Indian Railways, IRCOT
was founded.

39. 1987
There was automatic signalling system,
another safety aspect which was taken up
and then the next safety aspect was in
terms of solid state interlocking system
which was made operational.

40. 1988
The first Shatabdi Express was operated
between New Delhi and Jhansi.

41. 1989
• Train services were made universal by
adopting new four digit scheme as it
stands today.
• Railway Act was enacted.

42. 1993
Railway Capital Fund established.

43. 1996
• Six, new railway zones were created.
• The union Cabinet approves the first phase
of the Delhi Metro.

44. 1997
Freight services begin in Konkan Railway.

45. 1998
Indian Railways begins upgrading
communication links along high traffic
routes using optical fibers.

46. 1999
Credit cards were started to be accepted
for booking the tickets and reservations.

47. 2001
The interactive voice response systems,
IVRS, was made available by which we can
meet telephonic inquiries about the trains.

48. 2002
• Jan Shatabdi trains come into service.
• Indian Railway begins online train
reservations and ticketing over the
internet.

49. 2004
First successful run of Delhi metro, the first
underground section of the Delhi metro
was inaugurated, that was between Delhi
University and Kashmiri Gate.

50. 2005
IRCTC introduced e-ticketing systems by
Indian Railways and ticketing by SMS also
begin in the year 2005.

51. 2006
New Delhi – Bhopal Shatabdi cleared for
running at 150 km/hr commercial speed
on the New Delhi – Agra Cantt Stretch.
The regular double stacked container
services started, so as to move more
containers, more freight in the same
direction.

52. 2009
Indian Railways envisioned a plan to
increase the speed of passenger trains to
160–200 km/h (99–124 mph) on dedicated
conventional tracks and improve the
existing conventional lines
on 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) Broad gauge to
handle speeds of up to 160 km/h
(99 mph).

53. 2010
Various infrastructure modernization projects
have been undertaken including high-speed
rail, redevelopment of 400 stations, doubling
tracks to reduce congestion, refurbishing of
coaches, Global Positioning System (GPS)-
enabled tracking of trains and modernization
of locomotives

54. 2012
Western Railway switched completely to
A.C. traction with Central Railway following
it in 2016

55. 2014
The Diamond Quadrilateral high-speed rail
network project was launched by
Government of India and is envisioned to
connect the four major metro cities of
India namely: Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata an.d
Mumbai.

56. 2016
• In April 2016, WAP-5 hauled Gatimaan
Express became the India's fastest
commercial train in India, with a maximum
operational speed of 160 km/h (99 mph ),
made its first run from New Delhi to Agra

57. 2018
• A semi-high speed self-propelled train-
set capable of reaching speeds of over
160 km/h (99 mph) was rolled out from ICF
• In 2018–19, Indian Railways operated 13,523
passenger trains on average daily and carried
8.44 billion passengers.
• Indian railways removed all unstaffed level
crossings by 2019 with staffed level crossings
being replaced by bridges
• Other safety projects include the extension of
an automated fire alarm system to all air-

58. 2019
The Vande Bharat Express was launched in
2019.

59. 2023
• In December 2023, two modified WAP-5 locomotives
were used to haul the Amrit Bharat Express in a push-
pull configuration, capable of reaching speeds of up
to 160 km/h (99 mph). The first train was flagged off
on 30 December 2023 and entered commercial
service on 1 January 2024.
• More than 60,813 km (37,787 mi) of all the routes
have been electrified with 25 KV AC electric traction.

60. Today, the Railways are more energy
efficient as compared to other modes. It is
one of the busiest networks in the world,
transporting more than 11 billion
passengers and 1.416 billion tonnes of
freight annually.