Talk:Rail transport in India

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Featured article star Rail transport in India is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 16, 2007.


Contents

[edit] Gutenberg

  • The Gutenberg project contains a book named "Modern India" that is out of copyright. Chapter VIII is entirely devoted to "The Railways of India". Some of it might be useful for historical references.
Wow. That book seems to have a wealth of non-copyrighted material. -- Sundar (talk · contribs) June 28, 2005 09:31 (UTC)
I read it but material in that is a century old. =Nichalp «Talk»= June 28, 2005 10:11 (UTC)
I forgot to mention that it'll be useful for History of India and not this. -- Sundar June 28, 2005 11:07 (UTC)

[edit] "Cheapest"

The photo carries the caption " Indian Rail fares are among the cheapest in the world. A journey of 270 mi. (430 km) costs just US$4." This seems based on a tourist's view of the world. Is it really the cheapest by the measure that matters - average earnings of the people who mostly use the railway? By reputation (I've never been) India is a country where US$4 is a lot of money. Notinasnaid 09:40, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indian rail fares (2nd class) are heavily subsidised. Nichalp 20:26, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is their a point to that merge suggestion?

For locomotives. --Blacksun 03:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Safety

I didn't see anything on this page about the abysmal safety record of Indian railways. Is this in another place or hasn't it been written? I was doing some research of my own, and saw some of the crashes (mainly since 2000) at the Indian railway accidents category page. There are a LOT.

[edit] Accomodation classes

The accommodation classes section lacks the details of classes in recently introduced Garib Rath. Also, the merger of a section has been pending for a long time and needs to be sorted out. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 10:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Research and devlpt

there was no mention of r&d in the railways...so i've added the r&d section with suitable references.Gprince007 10:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] States covered

This article says:

Its operations covers twenty-eight states and three Union territories

while Indian Railways#Passenger services says:

Indian Railways operates 8,702 passenger trains and transports around five billion annually across twenty-six states and three union territories (Delhi, Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry) and Chandigarh). Sikkim and Meghalaya are the only states not connected.

Can someone resolve the discrepancy ? Abecedare 05:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questiona by Abecedare

Hi, I am using this section to list the questions I have as I read the article. Any help with the answers will be appreciated (so that I can avoid googling or cracking the books myself!):

  • The lead says: Many trains are officially identified by a four-digit code, though many are commonly known by unique names also. Aren't most/all trains identified by a four-digit code (or some alpha-numeric code) ? Are there exceptions ?Abecedare 05:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
    • The Nomenclature section lists some exceptions. I think the exceptions still have a four-digit code but have alternative names. It can be expressed more clearly in the article. GizzaDiscuss © 05:52, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
      • Thanks Gizza. I noticed that the "Nomenclature" section talks largely about "express", "super-express" trains and is not really comprehensive. Any chances of improving it ? Abecedare 06:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • From History section: "allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India" and "rapid creation of a rail system". Should that be rail systems. In particular, were the Roorkee and Bombay-Thane, part the the same rail system ? Abecedare 06:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is the Bombay-Thane line heralded as the birth of railways in India, rather than the birth of passenger railways in India ? Abecedare 06:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Hmmm, the first few (and several subsequent)sentences in the History section seem to be directly copied from [1] (or is it the other way around, in which case the seite cannot be used as a reference!) Abecedare 06:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Have tried to address most of the above mentioned concerns. Please have a look. --Dwaipayan (talk) 12:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I don't like this part of the lead:

Locomotives manufactured at several places in India are assigned codes identifying their gauge, kind of power and type of operation. Colour signal lights are used as signals, but in some remote areas of operation, the older semaphores and discs-based signalling are still in use. Accommodation classes range from general through first class AC. Trains have been classified according to speed and area of operation. Many trains are officially identified by a four-digit code, though many are commonly known by unique names also. Ticketing system has been computerised to a large extent, and there are reserved as well as unreserved categories of tickets.

which is a disjointed set of sentences without any common theme or flow, and is quite obviously an attempt to devote a sentence in the lead to cover each section of the article. I don't have any immediate ideas on how to improve it, but this is perhaps worth mulling over. Will get back to it after reading the whole article. Abecedare 06:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Metros

Great work, guys! FA! May I say that we now need to aspire beyond FA also! We need :-

  • A section on metros.
  • A section on train safety & accident history.
  • A spoken version of the article for the visually-challenged.
  • A section on role of railways in our economy.
  • Facts about its being the largest employer in our country.
  • A mention on the role of the Indian Railways of mobilisation of the Indian armed forces during war and their sterling performance in deserts in 1971 war too.

Regards, AshLin 03:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accidents?

There is not a single word on accidents or incidents. Just have a llok at List_of_1950-1999_rail_accidents#1980s to see the significance. --h-stt !? 06:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing --66.222.161.174 07:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Same thing for me. When I saw the article on the main page, I logged in to read the section about accidents, though I couldn't find any!!! The first thing that pops into mind of any reader when reading about rail transport in India is Accidents. There was noway chosing this as a featured article without including a section or even a link to the accidents.--TheEgyptian 22:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I just added List of Indian rail accidents to See also section.--TheEgyptian 22:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who the hell...

thought it was funny to put a bunch of pictures of some Boris Johnson? I'm deleting them.

Dunno. Some spammer/vandal with dynamic IP address and random user accounts have been vandalizing pages and making personal attacks against me all morning. I'm trying to deal with it....
I think I might have done some unfortunate reverts, so please accept my apologies. Ivansanchez 11:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highspeed railway plans?

Any idea about high speed railway plans?

--12.152.10.63 13:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The map of IR lines

the map is not working Jeroje 14:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)jeroje

When I clicked on this article there seems to be an error on the first picture I see (in fact I don't see because it doesn't appear!) Please can you tell me what is wrong with it? I click on the picture itself which lead to another page; the picture was fine. I clicked back and yet again the picture did not appear! Is this just me (not likely)? Please fix it. The map works fine at on the other page... LOTRrules 15:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. If still you can't see the map, purge the page. Gnanapiti 15:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Now its alright Jeroje 15:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)jeroje
It doensn't seem to work. I even tried ?1 at the end for the image and still it didn't work. Any suggestions?
have you tried to clear the cache ? Jeroje 17:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)jeroje
Thanks it works now! The cache was too much when I cleared it I had to wait and then finally it came! LOTRrules 09:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism by User:Farmer-alex

This user seems to be actively vandalising the article. Other editors, please take note. rohith 17:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've requested for blocking. Gnanapiti 17:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Safety, again

I too feel there should be a Safety or Criticism section describing the frequent accidents that happen. 121.241.96.5 10:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amount of metre gauge

The article fails to mention clearly in as many words how much metre gauge routes there is. Tabletop 01:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pt Translation

This article has been translated for pt.wiki in Abril 2007. And has won the Wikiprenda 3! Danilo P (talk) 23:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)