Railway Early Histoty & Developments

8/14/2019 Railway Early Histoty & Developments

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Early History

andDevelopments


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Creation of Indian Railways

1950: Legislation passed to allow centralgovt. to take over railway companies inIndia.

1951 (Apr 14): Southern Railway formed by merging Madras & Southern Mahratta

Rly, South Indian Rly and Mysore StateRly.

1951 (Nov 5): Central Railway formed by

merging GIPR, Nizam State Rly and


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1951 (Nov 5): Western Railway formed bymerging BB&CIR, Saurashtra Rly, Jaipur State Rly and Cutch Rly.

1952 (Apr 14): Northern Railway formed by merging Jodhpur Rly, Bikaner Rly, 3

divs of East Indian Rly and East Punjab Rly 1952 (Apr 14): Eastern Railway formed by

merging remaining EIR, Bengal Nagpur

Rly, and Bengal Assam Rly


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1952 (Apr 14): North Eastern Railwayformed by merging Oudh Tirhut Rly,Assam Rly and Kanpur-Achnera section of BB&CIR.Thus 6 zones came into being upto

14 April 1952.


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1955: SER carved out of ER 1958: NFR carved out of NER 1966: SCR carved out of CR & SR.


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Key Statistics (2000-2001)

Route Kms : 63,028 Number of Stations : 6,853 Passenger Kms : 457,022m Tonne Kms : 312,371m

Employees : 1,545.3m Revenue :Rs. 348,805m Expenditure :Rs. 346,673m

Up-to 31.3.2001


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Initial Reactions

Railways faced Prejudice, Opposition and Criticism in the early years.

Railways were considered unsafe as compared tocoaches(horse drawn carriages)

Does anybody mean to say that decent peoplewould consent to

be hurried alongupon a railroad, from which, had a lazy schoolboy left a marble, or a wicked one a stone, they would be pitched off their perilous track into the valley beneath;


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Initial Reactions(contd.)

Queen Victoria made her first rail journey only in 1842, a full 17 years after theopening of the first railway line in England.Even this was looked upon withapprehension by her loyal subjects.


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Initial Reactions(contd.)

In India, introduction of Railways was considereda hazardous and dangerous venture a premature

and expensive undertakingthe climate of the country would be a most serious obstacle. There

was the fear of the disastrous effect of periodical rains, of violent windsand a vertical sun. The damage that would be caused by insects and vermin tothe banks and the timber sleepers was dwelt on, as well as the effects of

tropical vegetation, while a more reasonable and valid objection was raised in the difficulty which would be experienced in finding competent engineersand workmen for constructing and working railroads in India.


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Early Signals The first train which left Darlington for Stockton

did not have the benefit of signals.

In India also, the first train in 1853 ran withoutany signals.


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Early Signals Policemen in impressive uniforms moved around the

station, changing the points at junctions and givinginstructions to the drivers of trains by coloured flags byday and oil lamps by night.

Very soon, fixed signals on posts began to to be used.Different Companies used different shapes.

Initially, the signals consisted of only main signals fittedin front of the station masters office and an outer signal ineach direction, without any interlocking between thefacing points and signals.


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Early SignalsOne type was the Disc and Crossbar signal where adisc being visible gave the Proceed aspect and arectangular crossbar being visible the stop aspect.

DiscindicatesProceed

Crossbar indicatesStop

Disc and Crossbar Signal


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Early Signals

In 1841, a new design of signal, the semaphorewas introduced and this soon became the standard.This early signal had an arm which is horizontal

for the stop aspect , inclined downwards at 45 o for the caution aspect and downwards 90 o for the

proceed aspect.

(Subsequently, the 45 0 aspect was made the proceed aspect and the 90 0 aspect was given up.)


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Early developments

Later, the station yards were key interlocked , keys beingtransmitted by hand.

In 1904, electric key transmitters were invented by Major Hepper, Signal Engineer ex-NorthWestern Railway(India). Popularly called Hepper Key Transmitters , theyhave been extensively used on IR.


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Early developments (contd)

The first railway (in India) to appoint aspecial officer as signal engineer was the

ex-East Indian Railway, who appointed Mr.S.T. Dutton in 1889. The Great IndianPeninsula was the second railway, which

appointed Mr. I.W. Stokes in 1903 and thiswas soon followed by other railways.


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The next important development was to control the pointsand signals from a central location at the station. Lever frames thus came into being. This grouping led to an even

more important development. Levers were connectedtogether in such a way that they were physically lockedunless it was safe to pull them. This feature was known asinterlocking and is the basis of all signalling today.

The ex-GIP Railway was the first railway to have installedcabin interlocking on a large scale on Bombay-Delhi routein 1912.

In UK. full comprehensive interlocking became a legalrequirement by 1880s.


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Simultaneously, simple electrical communication betweenstations became possible and this led to the development of the Block System. This system, when used under a strict

procedure, ensured that only one train can be on the track between two stations at any one time. This section of track (between stations) was known as the block and the systemknown as the Absolute Block System .

By the 1880s, Absolute Block system was also a compulsorylegal requirement in UK.

The system was gradually refined and interlocking betweenthe Block Instrument and the signals was also provided.


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Further developments

The next development was the Track Circuit thatcould detect, in a safe manner, that a section of

track was not occupied by any rail vehicles. Track circuits enabled introduction of automatic

signals, worked solely by the operation of track circuits.

Automatic Signalling was introduced in Bombayarea during 1928.


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Further developments (contd)

Conventional Colour Light Signals usefilament bulbs which have a life of 1000

Hrs. LED Signals, using a cluster of LEDs, have

been recently developed. They have much

longer life and are practically maintenancefree.


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Longer Lasting Lights

Light emitting diodes have been fitted to 25 ground position lights around Oxfordstation in a programme designed to reduce maintenance requirements. Traditional

lights often have a short bulb life; trials with the LEDs, developed by Amey andDorman Traffic Products, showed an 800% improvement in failure rates is possible.The new units cost 750 to replace, but the maintenance frequency improves fromquarterly to annually, giving a three year cost recovery.

Trials are currently underway at

Reading for theatre lights andunction indicators using LEDs.

Westinghouse Rail Systems hasgained Railtrack approval for itsnew SL35 long life signallamp. Standard lamps are replaced

at approximately every 1,000hrs,however the long life lamp,promoted by Westinghouse as 'thenext best solution to theLED signal', should last for 8,000hrs .

Modern Railways, December 2001, p 14


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Invention of electromechanical relays,along with the introduction of colour light

signals and electric point machines enableduse of relay interlockings operated fromPanels provided with push buttons and

illuminated indications.


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To pass signalling information from track-side to amoving locomotive, Automatic Warning System wasdeveloped during the 1960s. It is now refined to

provide Automatic Train Protection , where an on- board computer continuously calculates the maximum permissible speed and monitors & controls the actualspeed of the train

The most significant development took place duringmid 1980s. A microprocessor based Solid State

Interlocking system was developed.


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Further Trends

European Train Control System (ETCS): For AWS and ATC, different manufacturers (in

Europe) developed different designs, whichwere not compatible with one another. To overcome this problem, specifications have

been developed so that equipment of various

manufacturers becomes compatible. This willgive freedom to Railways to use equipment of any manufacturer.


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Further Trends (Contd.)

Moving Block concept: If Braking distance and an extra margin is

available in front of a moving train, it can movesafely. This gave rise to Moving Block concept.

For its working, information about condition of occupancy of track ahead of a train must reachthe on-board computer of the train continuouslyon a real time basis.

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Railway Early Histoty & Developments

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