🔰 INDIAN RAILWAYS : SOME IMPORTANT FACTS

▪️First Train : Bombay (Boribandar) - Thane (16 April 1853)

▪️Eastern India's First Passenger Train : Howrah - Hooghly (15 Aug 1854)
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▪️First passenger train in South India : Royapuram Veyasarapady (Madras) - Wallajah Road (Arcot) (1July 1856)

▪️First Electric Train : Bombay (Victoria Terminus) - Kurla (3 Feb 1925)

▪️First fully air-conditioned train : Howrah - New Delhi (1956)

▪️First Rajdhani Express : Howrah - New Delhi (3 March 1969)

▪️First Shatabdi Express : New Delhi - Jhansi (14 November 1988)

▪️First Garib Rath Express : Saharsa - Amritsar (5 Oct 2006)

▪️First Duronto Express : Sealdah - New Delhi (19 Sept 2009)

▪️First Rajya Rani Express : Mysore - Bangalore (1July 2011)

▪️First Humsafar Express : Gorakhpur - Anand Vihar (16 Dec 2016)

▪️First Antyodaya Express : Ernakulam - Howrah (4 March 2017)

▪️First Tejas Express : Mumbai CSMT - Karmali (Goa) (24 May 2017)

▪️First Vande Bharat Express : New Delhi - Varanasi (23 Feb 2019)

▪️The fastest train at present is the Vande Baharat Express with operation speeds of up to 180 km/h, though the fastest service is Gatimaan Express with an operational speed of 160 km/h and average speed of 113 km/h on the Delhi-Agra section

▪️The first under ground railway in India started in Kolkata in 1984

▪️First Computerised Passenger Reservation system was introduced in New Delhi Railway Station in 1986

▪️3 August 2002, Indian Railways began online train reservations and ticketing

▪️The central government approved merger of the Rail and General budgets from 2017, ending a 92-year-old practice of a separate budget for the nation's largest transporter

▪️The longest platform in the world now is in Gorakhpur (4482 ft)

▪️The longest rail journey : Between Dibrugarh and Kanniya Kumari (4286 km) performed by Vivek Express (2011)

▪️The longest rail journey by Rajdhani Express : Between Hazrat Nizamuddin and Thiruvananthapuram (3149 km)

▪️Vembanad Railway Bridge connecting Edappally and Vallarpadam with a length of 4.62 km is the longest rly bridge in India

▪️The longest railway tunnel : The Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel (between Qazigund and Banihal) (10.96 km)

▪️India with railroad network of 66,687 km (as on 31.03.2016) ranks FOURTH in the world after the US, Russia and China

▪️The state with the longest railroad network is Uttar Pradesh with 9077.45 km (as on 31.03.2016)

▪️The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, the Kalka Shimla Railway collectively known as Mountain Railways of India are classified as a "World Heritage Sites" by UNESCO

▪️Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (formerly known as Victoria Terminus Station) in Mumbai is also a World Heritage Site

▪️Bholu, an elephant is the mascot of Indian Railways

▪️Fairy Queen is the world’s oldest working steam locomotive plying from New Delhi to Alwar

▪️The Nilgiri Mountain Railway has a rack section of the line, from Kallar to Coonoor (elevation 1,712 m). This is the only place where rack system is used in Indian Railways

▪️The station which has all the three gauges viz narrow, metre and broad is Siliguri Junction station (NFR)

▪️Indian Railways is divided into 18 zones, headed by General Managers (GM). The zones are further subdivided into 68 operating divisions, headed by Divisional Railway Managers (DRM)