16-10-2012, 05:50 PM
SIGNALLING and TLECOMMUNICATION IN INDIAN RAILWAY (NWR) AT JAIPUR
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Locomotives
Indian railways uses a number of different Diesel and Electric locomotives, Steam locomotives were once very common but are now only used on heritage routes.
Technical details
Track and gauge
Indian railways uses four gauges, the 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge which is wider than the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge; the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge; and two narrow gauges, 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) and 610 mm (2 ft) . Track sections are rated for speeds ranging from 75 to 160 km/h (47 to 99 mph).
The total length of track used by Indian Railways was about 114,000 km (71,000 mi) while the total route length of the network was 64,215 km (39,901 mi) on 31 March 2011.[17] About 33% of the route-kilometre and 44% of the total track kilometre was electrified on 31 March 2011.[17]
Broad gauge is the predominant gauge used by Indian Railways.
Broad gauge is the predominant gauge used by Indian Railways. Indian broad gauge—1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)—is the most widely used gauge in India with 102,000 km (63,000 mi) of track length (90% of entire track length of all the gauges) and 54,600 km of route-kilometre (85% of entire route-kilometre of all the gauges) on 31 March 2011.
In some regions with less traffic, the metre gauge (1,000 mm/3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) is common, although the Unigauge project is in progress to convert all tracks to broad gauge. The metre gauge had about 9,000 km (5,600 mi) of track length (7.9% of entire track length of all the gauges) and 7,500 km of route-kilometre (11.6% of entire route-kilometre of all the gauges) on 31 March 2011.
The Narrow gauges are present on a few routes, lying in hilly terrains and in some erstwhile private railways (on cost considerations), which are usually difficult to convert to broad gauge. Narrow gauges had a total of 2,400 route-kilometre on 31 March 2011. The Kalka-Shimla Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are three notable hill lines that use narrow gauge.[18] Those three will not be converted under the Unigauge project.
Double Decker Train arrives at Howrah Junction after a trial run.
The share of broad gauge in the total route-kilometre has been steadily rising, increasing from 47% (25,258 route-km) in 1951 to 85% in 2011 whereas the share of metre gauge has declined from 45% (24,185 route-km) to less than 12% in the same period and the share of narrow gauges has decreased from 8% to 3%. However, the total route-kilometre has increased by only 18% (by just 10,000 km from 53,596 route-km in 1951) in the last sixty years. This compares very poorly with Chinese railways, which increased from about 27,000 route-km at the end of second world war to about 100,000 route-km in 2011, an increase of more than threefold. More than 28,000 route-km (34% of the total route-km) of Chinese railway is electrified compared to only about 21,000 route-km of Indian railways. This is an indication of the poor state of Indian railways where the funds allocated to new railway lines are meagre, construction of new uneconomic railway lines are taken up due to political interference without ensuring availability of funds and the projects incur huge cost and time overruns due to poor project-management and paucity of funds.
Double decker AC trains have been introduced in India. The first double deckar train was Flying Rani introduced in 2005 while the first double decker AC train in the Indian Railways was introduced in November 2010, running between the Dhanbad and Howrah stations having 10 coaches and
power cars.
Sleepers (ties) used are made of prestressed concrete, or steel or cast iron posts, though teak sleepers are still in use on few older lines. The prestressed concrete sleeper is in wide use today. Metal sleepers were extensively used before the advent of concrete sleepers. Indian Railways divides the country into four zones on the basis of the range of track temperature. The greatest temperature variations occur in Rajasthan.
Train Numbering
Effective December 20, 2010, the railways will deploy a 5 digit numbering system instead of the 4 digit system. The need is due to the fact that the Indian Railways runs 10,000 trains daily.[29] Only a prefix of the digit 1 will be added to the four-digit numbers of the existing trains to make the transition smoother. The special trains run to clear festivals and holiday rush shall have the prefix of 0 (zero)