Indian Railway

History of Indian Railway First Indian Railway line was opened on 16th April 1853.

The first train consisting of one steam engine and four coaches , traversed a stretch of 21-miles between Mumbai(Bombay) and Thane. Indian Railway has a glorious past of more than150 years serving the nation.

Features of Indian Railway Indian Railway has a 3 tier management system. No strike in last 30 years inspite of 17 lakhs workers. It runs 12000 trains everyday. It is largest railway system in World under one management system.

It carries 1.4 crore passengers and 16 lakh tonnes of goods every day.

It is fuel efficient system. 7000 stations & about 500 computerized passenger reservation system.

Speed of Trains Shatabdi max 140kmph. Rajdhani max 130kmph. Others max 110kmph.

Railway Track or Permanent Way Combination of rails, fitted on sleepers and resting on ballast and subgrade is called the railway track or permanent way.

Requirements of an Ideal Permanent Way Both rails should be at the same level. Curves should be properly designed. Proper super elevation should be provided.

Gauge The maximum distance between the running faces of the two rails of a permanent way is called GAUGE.

Dimension of gauges 1-Broad Gauge(BG) 1676mm(5’6”) 2-Standard Gauge(SG) 1435mm 3-Metre Gauge(MG) 1000mm 4-Narrow Gauge(NG) 762mm(2’6”) 5-Light Gauge 610mm

Types of Rails 1- Double Headed Rail. 2- Bull Headed Rail. 3- Flat Footed Rail.

Rail Failure 1-Crushed Heads. 2-Square or Angular Breaks. 3-Split Heads. 4-Split Web. 5-Horizontal Fissures. 6-Transverse Fissure.

Creep of Rails Creep is defined as the longitudinal movement of the rail with respect to the sleepers

Defects of Creep (i) Sleepers move out of position thereby the rail gauge. (ii) Position of points and crossings are disturbed. (iii) Interlocking mechanism gets disturbed.

Spikes For holding the rails to the wooden Sleepers various types of spikes are used.

Types of spikes Dog spikes. Screw spikes. Round spikes. Standard spikes. Elastic spikes.

Bolts Dog or hook bolt. Fish bolts. Fang nut bolts.

Chairs Cast iron chair (C.I chairs). Slide chairs.

Sleepers Sleepers are the transverse ties that are Laid to support the rails. They transmit wheel load from the rails to the ballast.

Classification of sleepers Wooden sleeper Metal sleeper Cast iron sleeper Steel sleeper Reinforced concrete Sleeper (R.C.C) (iii) Concrete sleeper Prestressed Concrete Sleeper .

Sleeper Density Sleeper density is the number of sleepers Per rail length. It is specified as(M+x) or (N+x), where M or N is the length of the rail in meters and x is a number varies to factors .

Ballast Ballast Ballast Single size aggregate used in rail track construction. Generally has a nominal size of 63mm or 53mm. Can be used as a very coarse drainage material. Ballast Ballast

Types of ballast Sand ballast. Moorum ballast. Coal ash or cinder. Broken stone ballast.