Railway

Indian Railways (IR) is India‘s national railway system operated by the Ministry of Railways. It manages the fourth largest railway network in the world by size, with a route length of 67,368-kilometre (41,861 mi) and total track length of 121,407-kilometre (75,439 mi) as of March 2017. Routes are electrified with 25 kV AC electric traction while 33% of them are double or multi-tracked.^[3][5]

Indian Railway (IR) runs more than 20,000 passenger trains daily, on both long-distance and suburban routes, from 7,349 stations across India.^[3] The trains have five-digit and four-digit numbering system. Mail or Express trains, the most common types, run at an average speed of 50.6 kilometres per hour (31.4 mph).^[6] Most premium passenger trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi Exp run at peak speed of 140–150 km/h (87–93 mph) with Gatiman Express between New Delhi and Agra touching peak speed of 160 km/h (99 mph). Indian railways has also started a pilot project by the name of “Train-18”, with successful trials between Delhi-Varanasi and Lucknow-Delhi and clocked maximum track speed of 180 km/h (112mph). In the freight segment, IR runs more than 9,200 trains daily. The average speed of freight trains is around 24 kilometres per hour (15 mph).^[7] Maximum speed of freight trains varies from 60 to 75 km/h (37 to 47 mph) depending upon their axle load with container special running at a peak speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).

As of March 2017, Indian Railway’s rolling stock consisted of 277,987 freight wagons, 70,937 passenger coaches and 11,452 locomotives.^[3] IR owns locomotive and coach-production facilities at several locations in India. The world’s eighth-largest employer, it had 1.308 million employees as of March 2017.^[3]

In the year ending March 2018, IR carried 8.26 billion passengers and transported 1.16 billion tonnes of freight.^[2] In the fiscal year 2017–18, IR is projected to have revenue of ₹1.874 trillion (US$27 billion), consisting of ₹1.175 trillion (US$17 billion) in freight revenue and ₹501.25 billion (US$7.3 billion) in passenger revenue, with an operating ratio of 96.0 percent.^[2]