10 surprising facts about the Indian Railways you didn’t know about 

The Indian Railways is over 163 years old. Given the rich and colourful history of its existence, no wonder there are unknown facts that can stun us. We’ve picked up just 10 of these. There are several books on the magic of the railways, and trains are heavily used in movies. They are part of life in India. Now see if you know these facts.  

Largest daily traffic carrier 
If we set the pandemic aside, Indian Railways runs over 12,817 trains on daily basis under normal circumstances, carrying about 24 million passengers. 

The world’s highest rail bridge 
The bridge crossing River Chenab in Jammu and Kashmir is going to be the world’s highest railway bridge once completed. It’s higher than the Eiffel Tower and 5 times as high as the Qutub Minar.    

IRCTC has some traffic 
The IRCTC site is sometimes terribly slow. It’s because it has an average of 12 lakh people using it per minute!   

Beautiful historical stations 
Beautiful old buildings, from Mumbai’s Victoria Terminus and Kolkata’s Howrah Station to Cuttack’s Barabati Fort miniature, make Indian Rail stations worth a visit. 

Indian Railways is the longest 
The railway network of our country is over 122,000 km of tracks, and growing daily.  

A station spanning 2 states 
Navapur Railway station is half in Maharashtra and half in Gujarat as it falls on the state border. Even the signboard is divided.  

Elephants helped build the Railways 
Elephants were used to position the rail cartridges when tracks were being laid. 

Indian Railways has a mascot 
The Indian railway mascot is Bholu, a jovial white elephant dressed as a railway guard. Bholu was originally designed for Indian Railways’ 150th year commemoration events. In 2003, he became as official mascot. 

The long and short 
Vivek Express (Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari) travels a distance of 4273 km, the longest Indian Railways route. And some trains run from Nagour to Ajni, only 3 km.   

Railway ads are old too 
Indian Railways advertisements are also some of the oldest. Before local trains came to be part of life in Mumbai, one such ad from British India lures ‘country’ people from Bandra and Andheri to visit Bombay on cheap railway tickets to enjoy the shops and cinemas of town life.