| The
core of the pressure for building railways
in India came from London in 1840s. For a
century thereafter the basic policies and
ultimate management of the Indian Railways
were issued from London. The British built
railways in India in order to intermesh
the economies of the two countries. The
building of railways in India brought
about unintended as well as hoped for
consequences in economic, political and
military front. The new railways tied the
the different parts of India together more
closely than ever before.
The first train
run in India took place on April 16th,
1853, when a train with 14 railway
carriages and 400 guests left Bombay's
Bori Bunder for Thane, with a 21-gun
salute. It was hauled by three
locomotives: Sindh, Sultan, and Sahib. The
journey took an hour and fifteen minutes
to complete. This, however, was just the
first commercial passenger service in
India. In fact, a steam loco, Thomason,
was already in use for hauling
construction material in Roorkee for the
Solani via duct in 1851.
The second locomotive to arrive in India
was Falkland (named for a governor of
Bombay), used by the contractors of the
GIPR for shunting operations on the first
line out of Bombay that was being built.
It later became GIPR loco #9. A third
locomotive, Vulcan, is said to have been
used by the GIPR for material hauling and
shunting duties in 1852 as well.
The first passenger train steamed out of
Howrah station for Hooghly, a distance of
24 miles, on 15th August, 1854. This was
the first section of the East Indian
Railway that was opened to public traffic,
inaugurating the beginning of railway
transport on the Eastern side of the
sub-continent.
In south the first line was opened on Ist
July, 1856 by the Madras Railway Company.
It ran between Veyasarpandy and Walajah
Road (Arcot), a distance of 63 miles. In
the North a length of 119 miles of line
was laid from Allahabad to Kanpur on 3rd
March 1959. The first section from Hathras
Road to Mathura Cantonment was opened to
traffic on 19th October, 1875. These were
the small beginnings which in due course
developed into a network of railway lines
all over the India. By 1880 the Indian
Railway system had a route mileage of
about 9,000 miles
Electrification
of Northern Railway includes route length
of 668 km of 1676 mm gauge at 25 kv, 50Hz
AC. Presently, there are 212 electric
locomotives, 72 EMU Motor Coach, 145 EMU
Trailer Coaches, 48 MEMU Motor Coaches 141
MEMU Trailer Coaches in service. The
electric traction hauls 62.2% of goods
traffic and 42.8 % of passenger traffic
Northern
Railway is the leader among the Zonal
Railways for converting the Meter Gauge
track into Broad Gauge well before the
target. It completed the conversion work
of 432 kms in the year 1992-93, 436 kms in
1993-94 and 456 kms during 1994-95.
Out of the total 4848 kms of converted
track on Indian Railways, Northern Railway
completed conversion work of 1324 kms,
which is 29% of the total work done.
Northern Railway has the distinction of
converting a stretch of 300 kms long track
between Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
The
290 kms Udhampur - Srinagar - Baramulla
rail line project will have a 10.3 kms
long tunnel.
Our
headquarters is at Baroda House, New
Delhi, with Divisional headquarters at
Ambala,Delhi, Firozpur, Lucknow and
Moradabad. We serve eight states - Delhi,
Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu &
Kashmir, Punjab, Uttaranchal and Uttar
Pradesh and the Union Territory of
Chandigarh
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