Indian Railways is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India t
Indian Railways (reporting mark IR) is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 65,808 km (40,891 mi) and 7,112 stations.[3] In 2014-15, IR carried 8.397 billion passengers annually or more than 23 million passengers a
day (roughly half of whom were suburban passengers) and 1058.81 million tons of freight in the year.[3] In 2014–2015 Indian Railways had revenues of ₹1634.50 billion (US$24 billion) which consists of ₹1069.27 billion (US$16 billion) from freight and ₹402.80 billion (US$5.9 billion) from passengers tickets.[2]
Railways were first introduced to India in the year 1853 from Mumbai to Thane. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities at several places in India and are assigned codes identifying their gauge, kind of power and type of operation. Its operations cover twenty nine states and seven union territories and also provides limited international services to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Indian Railways is the world's seventh largest commercial or utility employer, by number of employees, with over 1.376 million employees as of last published figures in 2013 . As for rolling stock, IR holds over 245,267 Freight Wagons, 66,392 Passenger Coaches and 10,499 Locomotives (43 steam, 5,633 diesel and 4,823 electric locomotives).[3] The trains have a 5 digit numbering system and runs 12,617 passenger trains and 7421 freight trains daily.[4] As of 31 March 2013, 21,614 km (13,430 mi) (32.8%) of the total 65,808 km (40,891 mi) route length was electrified.[5] Since 1960, almost all electrified sections on IR use 25,000 Volt AC traction through overhead catenary delivery.
