Live data from Hacker News

Indian Railways Works Manual (2000) [pdf]

iricen.gov.in

51–60 of 71 posts

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

#51

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?

Generally, when you go the high-speed route, you have lines that are a lot longer than slower, more local lines. You do not want stations along the way to be terminus-style stations, where you'd

1. have to switch out the driver position from one end of the train to another end to just leave the station again and

2. have a series of track switches which may malfunction (which ironically is a challenge even for highly industrialised countries like Germany), and it

3. means more and slower track to be maintained.

If you set up a bullet train program, you want speed, and these problems kill the speed advantage. The solution is to build a new station in which the train can just pass through.

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

#52

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?

If the train has to leave the high speed line on the outskirts of the city and run at slow speed it wastes a lot of time.

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

#53
post #15
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…

> high speed rail such as the French TGV, Japanese Shinkansen or Chinese CRH You forgot the German ICE[1] ;-) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express

Technically, he did not. Both the CRH and the current ICE models are based on Siemens' Velaro platform: https://www.mobility.siemens.com/global/en/portfolio/rail/ro...

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

#54
post #37
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high speed rail such as the French TGV, Japanese Shinkansen or Chinese CRH You forgot the German ICE[1] ;-) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express

It's a little known fact that "DB" actually stands for "Daheim Bleiben". :D

... which translates to "Stay at home".

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

#55
post #27

Indian Railways was started by the colonial British for just two purposes. 1. To Return multiple times returns for British investors on the expense of Indian colonies. 2. To move supply of Raw material to the ports and manufactured goods from England to the natives. The British left India. But the Indian Railways is still in India. This organization was not built to serve the people of the land. The Indians have impr…

They also brought manufactured goods back and helped unify India as a nation. Get that chip off your shoulder.

> helped unify India as a nation

Pakistan would like a word.

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

#56
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Varna is decided by karma, not birth. Dalits can and do become brahmins by following diets, rituals and become temple priests. Brahmins also have become kshatriyas by picking up weapons of war.

[1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kerala-dalit-priests...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmakshatriya

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

#57
post #33
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high speed rail such as the French TGV, Japanese Shinkansen or Chinese CRH You forgot the German ICE[1] ;-) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercity_Express

He forgot many if that matters. There are high speed rails in many countries not only these. just to name a few: Italy, Spain, Korea, Taiwan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_l...

Coming from Germany I just could not hold it back... ;-)

Besides that, I doubt, that they all are independent products, but rather one of the named platforms.

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

#58
post #27

Indian Railways was started by the colonial British for just two purposes. 1. To Return multiple times returns for British investors on the expense of Indian colonies. 2. To move supply of Raw material to the ports and manufactured goods from England to the natives. The British left India. But the Indian Railways is still in India. This organization was not built to serve the people of the land. The Indians have impr…

They also brought manufactured goods back and helped unify India as a nation. Get that chip off your shoulder.

Regarding 'helped unify India as a nation', they are not the first. Referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN41DJLQmPk, India's map looked close to the present day multiple times in the past.

Maurya Empire-284 BCE [1:57]

Delhi Sultanate (Tughlaq)-1345 [8:45]

Mughal Empire-1692 [10:24]

As for 'they also brought manufactured goods back', they exported raw materials from India and imported back finished goods, thereby destroying the local industries in India.

>By the mid-19th century, the Indian economy had been fully transformed into a colonial trade pattern, where its export consisted mainly of agricultural commodities such as foodgrains, and the home charges were met by exporting such commodities, while the imports consisted of manufactured goods, especially cotton textiles and machinery (Siddiqui, 2015c). After the 1880s, the trade imports became more diversified, due to the growing penetration of foreign manufactured goods such as cotton textiles, capital goods, machinery etc. (Siddiqui, 1996) This in turn further undermined the position of the local producers and hastened the decay of indigenous industries and handicrafts.

https://worldfinancialreview.com/the-political-economy-of-fa...

Dr Shashi Tharoor did a nice speech about the British rule in India listing out the damages they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4. Text version of this speech available here: https://www.news18.com/news/india/read-shashi-tharoors-full-.... His book on the same topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglorious_Empire

Then there is the famines. Famines during british rule is estimated to have killed from 20-50 million Indians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_major_famines_in_I.... Google image search of 'british india famines' should show some photos for those who haven't heard of this before. An article talking about why famines occured: https://worldfinancialreview.com/the-political-economy-of-fa...

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Varna is decided by karma, not birth. Dalits can and do become brahmins by following diets, rituals and become temple priests. Brahmins also have become kshatriyas by picking up weapons of war. [1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kerala-dalit-priests... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmakshatriya

Vedic scriptures is very clear (rig veda) and prohibits any move. Even "Richard Stallman" (RMS) understands this https://stallman.org/articles/ramayana.html which native indian people act like they don't understand. I can site recent and better example that happened in TamilNadu (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/tamil-nadu-dmk-temples...). 120 or so priests were appointed who were not from priest families. This is not allowed by the vedas(the hindu book). It is because government intervened and fought against the temples decisions. There is some progressive things happening in these states. Thanks to Periyar.

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

#60

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.

In my experience, Caltrain in Silicon Valley smells of urine. So it's not just a third world thing.
Post reply on HN