The Railway. A timetable is a safety system.
Front
The Railway
A timetable is a safety system
The rail network, and the schedule that keeps trains off each other.
Back
Indian Railways runs about 13,000 passenger trains a day across roughly 68,000 route kilometres, carrying around 2.4 crore people. Most track is shared, so passenger and freight trains take turns on the same rails. The timetable is not a convenience. It is the thing standing between two trains and one line.
- A late train is never only late. Every train behind it inherits the delay, because the slot it missed already belonged to somebody else.
- Freight pays for passengers. Goods traffic earns most of the revenue, which is why a passenger ticket costs less than the journey actually costs.
Ministry of Railways annual statistics
Keep exploring
Because you read The Railway.
The Last Mile
The shortest leg costs the most
The final stretch to your door, and why it dominates the bill.
The Address
Six digits that sort a billion letters
The system that turns a description of a place into a delivery.
Standard Time
One clock for two thousand kilometres
The single national time, and the machinery that keeps it exact.