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Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

iricen.gov.in

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Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#41

Post by vishnugupta »

gjkood wrote: post #8

The Indian Railways is definitely an interesting organization. Doing a cursory glance at a Wikipedia entry, some of the stats: 1. Established in 1832 2. 3rd largest railway network in the world 3. 8th largest employer in the world. I was hoping to see something about the actual Rail Track details but this is more of a civil engineering specs for building construction. I am curious about when and how Indian Railways w…

> when and how Indian Railways will incorporate high speed rail

So there are two parallel efforts going on.

High speed bullet trains[1]. These require building everything from scratch, tracks, stations and so on. When fully operational, it will be a truly new experience for Indians and hope will boost economy and benefit common man.

The second one[2] is upgrading existing tracks and coaches to be run at a higher speed (I guess around ~150KM/h). This will also have an added benefit of upgrading existing infrastructure such as signalling, crossings, tracks etc., Given the sheer size and complexity of Indian Railways IMO this will have more benefits as it'll improve the overall running times, utilisation and such.

Indian Railways is a life line of millions of people as they rely on it for daily wages. And as far as complex systems to very few come close to it. Until very recently they still relied on manual token exchange mechanism[3]. During one of train station visits my father drew my attention to token exchange and explained how it worked. Truly awesome.

I'm glad to see it on the front page of HN; more people need to know about it.

[1] https://www.nhsrcl.in/en/home

[2] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/102-vande-...

[3] https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/Ball...

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#43

Post by saimiam »

throwawayy37r3 wrote: post #39
naruvimama wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "caste" is derived from the Portuguese castas. The European class system is essentially what transformed into the Indian caste system. Not to mean there was no social hierarchy in India, but the rigid birth based system we have today is the handiwork of the British social engineering. Especially interesting is the population survey which labeled population with a caste, the power to label someone X lay with…

This is not true. caste is the foundation of the vedic. Its the division of labour not laboreres. For the scientific minided with verifable facts read the short manual by an actual scientist and later political reformer https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readin...

The person you’re replying to has a history of denying known issues with Indian society and blaming the britishers and/or Islamic invaders like the Mughals for all of India’s issues. I tangled with them not so long ago. Wasn’t worth the effort, imho.

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#44

Post by einpoklum »

vishnugupta wrote: post #41
gjkood wrote: post #8

The Indian Railways is definitely an interesting organization. Doing a cursory glance at a Wikipedia entry, some of the stats: 1. Established in 1832 2. 3rd largest railway network in the world 3. 8th largest employer in the world. I was hoping to see something about the actual Rail Track details but this is more of a civil engineering specs for building construction. I am curious about when and how Indian Railways w…

> when and how Indian Railways will incorporate high speed rail So there are two parallel efforts going on. High speed bullet trains[1]. These require building everything from scratch, tracks, stations and so on. When fully operational, it will be a truly new experience for Indians and hope will boost economy and benefit common man. The second one[2] is upgrading existing tracks and coaches to be run at a higher spee…

I can understand why you might need new tracks for bullet trains (old ones not perfectly level and aligned, quality of materials, friction properties, whatever).

But why would you have to build new _stations_ for them?

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#45

Post by einpoklum »

imdhmd wrote: post #38

Trains fares are very low in India. For example you can travel by a sleeper coach from Hyderabad to Chennai (628km) for just $5.38. Unfortunately the low cost reflects in the poor quality of service.

The train fares are not intended to reflect costs; it is a public (well, state) enterprise funded via taxes by the overall economic activity of Indian society.

Which is to say that the quality of service is the result of political decisions at the social level rather than the fares. The fares could well have been 0 with great service, or much higher with the same poor quality.

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#46

Post by throwawayy37r3 »

dilawar wrote: post #9
jimmyed wrote: post #7

I found the focus on first class passengers quite interesting. There are guidelines along the lines of "no provision to be made of toilets if there are no first class passengers", "make sure to have separate waiting rooms for different classes of passengers".. The British era recommendations hadn't been removed by 1967 at least.

British class systems and Indian caste system worked together very well.

There is a crucial difference. If you become a great inventor or by luck if one becomes wealthy, one can move over the class system with the British system. Its not the case with the indian caste system, it is all about privilege by birth.

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#47

Post by throwawayy37r3 »

saimiam wrote: post #43
throwawayy37r3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. caste is the foundation of the vedic. Its the division of labour not laboreres. For the scientific minided with verifable facts read the short manual by an actual scientist and later political reformer https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readin...

The person you’re replying to has a history of denying known issues with Indian society and blaming the britishers and/or Islamic invaders like the Mughals for all of India’s issues. I tangled with them not so long ago. Wasn’t worth the effort, imho.

With Mughals its whole different story. Instead of discouraging religion, some emperors tried to solve by marrying Hindu women. But their kids has to belong to one of the Koran or Vedic shit. It did not solve either anything. Now both of you go downvote me.

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#49

Post by kalleboo »

einpoklum wrote: post #44
vishnugupta wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when and how Indian Railways will incorporate high speed rail So there are two parallel efforts going on. High speed bullet trains[1]. These require building everything from scratch, tracks, stations and so on. When fully operational, it will be a truly new experience for Indians and hope will boost economy and benefit common man. The second one[2] is upgrading existing tracks and coaches to be run at a higher spee…

I can understand why you might need new tracks for bullet trains (old ones not perfectly level and aligned, quality of materials, friction properties, whatever). But why would you have to build new _stations_ for them?

You need new tracks as in completely different right of way. Bullet trains need very straight tracks, existing tracks are too curved and at high speeds you'd fly off in the corners (tilting trains exist but have limitations). And if you're building new track, there are no existing stations to reuse.

Re: Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

#50

Post by willyt »

stillblue wrote: post #11

For what seems to be a fairly organized system, they still have not figured out how to not have the compartments smell like stale urine. I am not even joking. The moment you step into a compartment even the air-conditioned ones, the stench of urine is unbelievably strong. This has been this way since 2000s. Such a shame for a system that could be so much better.

Could be a hangover from British Imperialism, somehow the Pendolino’s in Britain manage to smell slightly of urine as well. It must be something to do with poor aerodynamics around the vent openings for the AC and the soil vent for the toilet tanks as they’ve never managed to fix it.
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