RailEnquiry Blog

"Railway is targeting full electrification across all the routes with a 35,000 crore plan."  This news came out last year in October. Railway wanted to finish the electrification process by 2021. The idea is to bring down the energy bill.  According to Railway data, 15.6 billion units of electricity is consumed by Railways every year that amounts to Rs. 9500 crore as power bill. On the other hand, railway's diesel bill is Rs. 17,000 crore every year.   From the time, Railway Minister Piyush Goel took the charge, he is consistently pushing for the full electrification for Indian Railways. Just for comparison, you must know that trains predominantly run in Eu[...]

Its been a longtime since Indian Railways underwent any sort of major makeover. Now with the help of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, vibrant colours are being added to coaches. The new colour scheme will intially be limited to certain trains and will used on trial basis. In these latest pictures, it can be seen that new colour scheme has been used on ICF coaches by Northern Railways. Railway officials say that new colour scheme on ICF coaches are used only after directions of the Railway Board. All these colour schemes are jointly developed by Indian Railways and National Institute of Ahmedabad. Parked coaches can be seen on New Dellhi Railway station for inspection by Rail[...]

Fed-up of unhygienic and questionable on-board catering services of Indian trains; most of the times passengers are compelled to use other online food services options. Online food catering services like Travelkhana, Railyatri etc. Not only offer convenience to passengers on-board, but they also provide a sense of relief to passengers who find hard to believe in hygiene of food supplied from pantry car.     Now a recent notification issued by IRCTC on its twitter handle, warn passengers to avoid using unauthorised online food services. IRCTC signifies this notification with a tag line -   "Do not risk your lives." &n[...]

मौजूदा समय में रेलवे प्रति वर्ष नयी ट्रेनें लगातार चला रहा रहा परन्तु इसके बावजूद दो-तिहाई यात्री कन्फर्म टिकट से वंचित रह जाते हैं या फिर उन्हें अंतिम समय तक सीट नही मिल पाती है | पीआरएस अर्थात र�[...]

Slowly India has moved towards better road infrastructure across the country. From east to west and north to south, today we have four to six lanes express ways that not only have allowed regulation and distribution of traffic but have also increased the pace of traffic. This has helped country in so many ways except Railways. With age old infrastructure and consistent inability to increase the pace of trains besides increase in fares without providing any different experience altogether, Indian Railway is losing big from AC and regular express bus services.     Shatabdi Express is the worst hit by this passenger recessio[...]

If you have to name one institution that took "Swachh Bharat Mission" with utmost sincerity then without any doubt it is the "Indian Railways."  However, despite showing sincerity towards cleanliness there are railway stations across India which are dirty, filthy and an unhygienic place to be in. Railway ranks its stations for cleanliness in different categories so that some kind of competition can be thrown in between stations. There are about 8000 stations in the country and the idea is to make the entire rail network clean and beautiful but the process to bring that idea into reality is not very efficient. It is due to this process you have cleanest[...]

Great Southern India Railway company built one of the most important routes in Salem – Erode section in 1861. Currently it is part of Jolarpettai – Coimbatore mainline. In 1931 when 45 Blue Mountain Express used to run from Madras (Chennai) to Ooty; it took exactly 1 hour and 3 minutes to complete the total journey of 62 kilometers. Today, Nilgiri Express still takes 1 hour to cover the same 62 kms distance which is just 3 minutes less despite being hualed with a WAP 7 locomotive capable to produce 6350 horse powers.  Similarly, when India's most prestigious Rajdhani Express was introduced between Howrah and New Delhi in 19[...]

We are aware of the environmental disaster that plastic waste creates around us and despite that there are no concrete measures to regulate the hazardous plastic waste. Due to this negligence plastic waste is causing severe damage to our nature. The only way to overcome plastic disaster is recycling and reuse of plastics. Recycling of plastics ensures that environment becomes free from extremely harmful chemical ingredients that are used to manufacture plastics.  Railway wants to lead the way in recycling of plastic wastes. With an aim to save environment and to set an example; a plastic recycling machine has been set up at Jodhpur Railway[...]

In spite of having been the subject of debate over the last two decades, privatization of Indian Railways continues to hound the think-tank with no sign of receding into the background.  While it is true that Indian Railways deserves the credit for serving the largest democracy in the world, it has also been at the receiving end of some scathing criticism, particularly in case of aspects like service, catering and punctuality. Recent mishaps have further deepened the skepticism of critics that this government-operated enterprise could ever be improved within the existing framework.  It was some time during the last decade of the 20 th centur[...]

No matter how well you prepare yourself to meet unprecedented emergencies, news of an accident is always overwhelming and dreaded. Train accidents are no exceptions when it comes to the shock and trauma that follows. What renders them truly disturbing is the fact that often the accident is a result of gross negligence and could have been avoided by practicing basic vigilance.  That being said, the essence of human race is to learn from past mistakes and one of the ways of doing so entails being aware of the worst. With the intention of creating awareness for avoiding such disasters in future, compiled as follows is a list of some of the worst train disasters in the history of Indian [...]

A class 9 student of a convent school in New Delhi, Anais Josemon ran away from her home after she failed in mathematics test. But never she would have thought that her conduct will virtually become a face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's book Exam Warriors.  According to her mother, Josemon left home on March 8 as she was unable to secure passing marks in mathematic. She boarded Tamil Nadu Express from Nizamuddin station. She planned to travel to Chennai where she wants to enroll herself for Bible classes. It was only at Bhopal railway station, she was rescued by Railway Protection Force. Josemon returned home after 36 hours.  On Saturday Railway Minister Piyush Goyal m[...]

WAG - 12 Electric traction locomotive is the most powerful electric loco made in India. Here are the full details you must know about it -   Ministry of Railway signed a contract with Alstom in November 2015 to develop and supply electric locomotives.  This project is the first Foreign Direct Investment in Indian rail sector.  Under this joint venture, Indian Railways shares 26%.  The contract allows import of first 5 locomotives while rest 795 are to be manufactured in India with local support.   Scheduled delivery period is from 2018 to 2028.  The ₹300-crore project also includes 2- maintenance depots at Nagpur, Maharashtr[...]

Indian Railway allow passengers to book ticket 4 months in advance. Often it happens with a confirmed ticket when need of transfer occurs within family or closed ones. However, do you know that Indian Railways do allow to transfer tickets within family or to colleagues or to students. But earlier transfer rules were stringent which now has been tweaked by Indian Railways. This means if for any reason you are unable to travel on your confirmed ticket you can easily transfer ticket to another person in need with some restrictions.  Here are the rules and restrictions you must know before you can transfer our tickets -  Any transfe[...]

Many times it has been repeated in the past that Railway is a mere tool for politicians that is primarily used to attract voters in favour of a particular political party. It is due to this fact Indian Railways has fallen way behind in terms of modernization compared to advanced rail systems in many developed countries. Now after the merger of Rail Budget in General Budget it was stated in bold lines that - gone are the times when Railway can be used as a political tool before or after elections to serve the cause of politicians. However, it did happen in a way that no more flashy announcements are made to attrac[...]

Most interesting facts about Indian Railway Locomotives -  Classification of an Indian Locomotive -  Classifications of locomotives in India are done according to gauge.  To classify an Indian locomotive, 4 or 5 letters are used.  First letter denotes the type of gauge.  Second letter signifies the nature of locomotive i.e. Diesel or Electric  Third letter signifies that whether the locomotive is suited for shunting or mixed, passenger or freight  Fourth letter is used to signify locomotives' chronological model number or horsepower range depending on locomotive's nature.  If fifth le[...]

An ambitious scheme is taking its shape silently behind the closed doors of Indian Railway ministry. Under this scheme Rail Ministry is framing ways to give birth to private players to run their own trains parallel to Indian Railways. To run private trains rail ministry will also allow private players to set up their own lines across the country.  A top rail official quotes - "Railway will charge private operators on trains run by them, however they will be allowed to build their own infrastructure. Also, a private player can build their own rail line but it can allow third party to run trains on it."[...]

क्या भारतीय रेल के बिज़नेस करने के तरीके में कोई कमी है जिसे ठीक करने की जरूरत है ? आखिर क्यों यात्रियों को सही और अच्छी सुविधाएं लाख प्रयासों के बाद भी नहीं मिल पा रही हैं ? या फिर अब किये जा [...]

Toilet in lower class were introduced after a letter  In 1909 Okhil Babu, a passenger wrote a letter to rail authorities describing the problems he faced due to absence of lavatories in lower class, which eventually forced him to get off the train at a station thereby missing the train. It is only after this letter, toilets were introduced in lower class of trains.  Longest rail tunnel   Pir Panjal tunnel in Jammu Kashmir is the longest rail tunnel in India. The length of this tunnel is 11.215 KMS. This tunnel was completed in year 2012.  Oldest working loco of Indian Railways [...]

Speed and Indian Railways does not go hand in hand whenever you think of these two together. At a time when currently pseudo superfast trains of Indian Railways barely reach their destinations on time leaving passengers agitated; thought of trains hitting even 150 kmph speed is a dream for train lovers of India. However, despite all the skeptisim Indian Railways is working on a project silently under code name "Train 18" and "Train 20." With an aim to replace premier trains like - Shatabadi and Rajdhani, Train - 18 and Train - 20 is expected to be launched in August 2018 and 2020 respectively. According to a news report, Train - 20 will replace Rajdhani trains and[...]

Latest railway reports suggests that revenue of luxury tourist trains operating across the popular tourist destinations in Rajasthan reduced drastically in last three years. Trains like Rajasthan on wheels and Palace on Wheels specifically aimed to attract foreign tourists thereby enhancing tourism across the state are lurching to generate revenues to even match running costs. Palace on wheels saw a dip of 24.08 percent in revenue generation while revenue of Royal Rajasthan on Wheels took a dip of 63.18 percent. According to Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation which operates both these trains, is finding difficult operate these trains due to financial loss.  Railway officer[...]