Rail Transport

India has the fourth largest rail network in the world after USA (224,792 km), China(98,000 km), and Russia (81,157 km). Railways connect different parts of the country. The total length of Indian Railways presently is around 64,000 kms. Indian railway carries two crore people on 18,000 trains daily.

Indian Railways have grown into a vast network of 7030 stations spread over a route length of 63,974 km with a fleet of 8,593 locomotives, 51,030 passaenger service vehicle, 6,505 other coaching vehicles and 2,19,931 wagons as on 31st March, 2010 (India - 2012, p. 1076).

About 30 per cent of the route kilometer, 41 per cent of running track kilometer and 41 per cent of total track kilometre is electrified. About 85 per cent of the total railway route is in broad gauge, 11.3 per cent in meter gauge and only 3.70 per cent in narrow gauge.

Passengers originating had risen from 1284 million in 1950-51 to 7246 Million in 2009-2010. Despite constraing of resources, the railways have been able to cope with increasing demand of passenger traffic. Railways are the premier mode of passenger transport both for long distance and suburban traffic.

Revenue freight traffic has increased from 73.2 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 888 million tonnes in 2009-10 (India-2012, p. 1079). They provide the principal mode of transportation for freight and passengers. 1 hus, they unite people from the farthest corner of the country and make possible role during the periods of droughts, floods, wars, epidemics, and natural calamities. The process of industrialisation and economic development has also been accelerated with the help of railways.

The railway system started in India in 1853 when the first railway line between Mumbai (Bombay) and Thane (a distance of 34 km) was inaugurated. This was followed by the opening of another railway line between Kolkata (Calcutta) and Raniganj in 1854, and Chennai (Madras) and Arkonam in 1856. The railway development was, however, quite fast after 1900 and a tremendous progress in the development of railway network was made after Independence (1947).

Originally the railways were operated by private companies owned by the British; but in 1950, the entire railway management was taken over by the Central Government.