Indian Railways: 10 interesting facts you didn’t know about Indian Railways
1. Largest employer in the World : Railways has the largest employer in the country and throughout the world it stands at eighth position. Indian Railways have approximately 1,55 million employees which exceeds the total number of employees hired by Tata, Reliance and Aditya Birla group.
2. Slowest train in India: The slowest running train in the Indian Railways is the Metupalayam-Ooty Nilgri Passenger Train that runs at the speed of 10 km/hour. The train takes 4 hours to cover a distance of 44 kilometers, you will never find anyone rushing in to catch the narrow gauge passenger train. The maximum its speedometer touches is 12 km per hour.
3. First Railway Line : The first railway on Indian sub-continent ran over a stretch of 21 miles from Bombay to Thane. And the first passenger train started from Howrah station and its destination was till Hooghly. It started on 15th August 1854, and the distance was 24 miles.
4. Busiest station in India: The capital of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow the most famous metropolitan cities, is the India’s busiest Railway Station. This multicultural city has become an important centre of government, technology, tourism etc. From Lucknow railway station, trains about 64 in numbers arrive and depart everyday, which make is busiest railway station in the country.
5. Routes with no stoppages : As longest the route more stoppages will be there, but here is route with nullified number of stops and promise to reach at its destination on time. The Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani which covers approximately 528 kilometers long Vadodara-kota route without a single stoppage. The train start from Thiruvananthapuram and reach at its destination without taking any of rest in amid.
5. Routes with no stoppages : As longest the route more stoppages will be there, but here is route with nullified number of stops and promise to reach at its destination on time. The Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani which covers approximately 528 kilometers long Vadodara-kota route without a single stoppage. The train start from Thiruvananthapuram and reach at its destination without taking any of rest in amid.
6. Longest Platform: After busiest station, here is the longest platform in the world and India is proud to own that honor. Kharagpur, which is 2,733 feet in length is the longest railway platform in the world. It is basically an important industrial town in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal.
7. 11,000 trains everyday : The India Railway is the world’s largest railway networks which comprise about 115,000 km of track over a 65,000 route and stations in 7,500 number. Indian Railways runs around 11,000 trains everyday out of which 7,000 are passenger trains. This medium of transportation is within every person reach either he is from lower class, middle class or high class.
8. Routes: The train journey can be longest or shortest one. The Nagpur-Ajni is the shortest route in India with 3 kilometres distance between two. Whereas, the Dibrugarh-Kanyakumari Vivek Express covers about 4,273 Kilometres which is the longest route in India.
9. Smallest and Longest station names : The railway station with the smallest name is Ib and is located in Odisha. Meanwhile, Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta is the station with the longest name on Indian Railways.
10. Maximum stoppages: The Howrah Junction to Amritsar train has the maximum stoppages with about 115 halts, where train has to stop for few minutes. The route provides the train with the maximum number of stops.