Early History

and
Developments
 Creation of Indian Railways
• 1950: Legislation passed to allow central
govt. to take over railway companies in
India.
• 1951 (Apr 14): Southern Railway formed
by merging Madras & Southern Mahratta
Rly, South Indian Rly and Mysore State
Rly.
• 1951 (Nov 5): Central Railway formed by
merging GIPR, Nizam State Rly and
 Creation of Indian Railways
• 1951 (Nov 5): Western Railway formed by
merging 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
 Creation of Indian Railways
• 1952 (Apr 14): North Eastern Railway
formed by merging Oudh Tirhut Rly,
Assam Rly and Kanpur-Achnera section of
BB&CIR.
Thus 6 zones came into being upto
14 April 1952.
 Creation of Indian Railways
• 1955: SER carved out of ER
• 1958: NFR carved out of NER
• 1966: SCR carved out of CR & SR.
 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
 First Trains
• England 1825
• France 1829
• United States 1830
• Germany 1835
• Russia 1837
• Holland 1839
• Italy 1839
• Spain 1848
• India 1853 (16 April)
 Initial Reactions
• Railways faced Prejudice, Opposition and
Criticism in the early years.

• Railways were considered unsafe as compared to

coaches(horse drawn carriages)
“Does anybody mean to say that decent people…would consent to
be hurried along…upon 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;…”
 Initial Reactions(contd.)
• Queen Victoria made her first rail journey
only in 1842, a full 17 years after the
opening of the first railway line in England.
Even this was looked upon with
apprehension by her loyal subjects.
 Initial Reactions(contd.)
• In India, introduction of Railways was considered
a ‘hazardous and dangerous’ venture a ‘premature
and expensive undertaking’
“…the climate of the country would be a most serious obstacle. There
was the fear of the disastrous effect of periodical rains, of violent winds
and a vertical sun. The damage that would be caused by insects and vermin to
the 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 engineers
and workmen for constructing and working railroads in India.”
 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 without
any signals.
 Early Signals

• Policemen in impressive uniforms moved around the

station, changing the points at junctions and giving
instructions to the drivers of trains by coloured flags by
day 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’ fitted
in front of the station master’s office and an outer signal in
each direction, without any interlocking between the
facing points and signals.
 Early Signals
One type was the ‘Disc and Crossbar’ signal where a
disc being visible gave the Proceed aspect and a
rectangular crossbar being visible the stop aspect.

Crossbar Disc
indicates indicates
Stop Proceed

Disc and Crossbar Signal

 Early Signals
• In 1841, a new design of signal, the semaphore
was introduced and this soon became the standard.
This early signal had an arm which is horizontal
for the stop aspect, inclined downwards at 45o for
the caution aspect and downwards 90o for the
proceed aspect.

• (Subsequently, the 450 aspect was made the proceed

aspect and the 900 aspect was given up.)
 Early developments

• Later, the station yards were key interlocked, keys being

transmitted by hand.
• In 1904, electric key transmitters were invented by Major
Hepper, Signal Engineer ex-NorthWestern Railway
(India). Popularly called Hepper Key Transmitters, they
have been extensively used on IR.
 Early developments (contd)
• The first railway (in India) to appoint a
special officer as signal engineer was the
ex-East Indian Railway, who appointed Mr.
S.T. Dutton in 1889. The Great Indian
Peninsula was the second railway, which
appointed Mr. I.W. Stokes in 1903 and this
was soon followed by other railways.
 Early developments (contd)
• The next important development was to control the points
and 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 connected
together in such a way that they were physically locked
unless it was safe to pull them. This feature was known as
interlocking and is the basis of all signalling today.
• The ex-GIP Railway was the first railway to have installed
cabin interlocking on a large scale on Bombay-Delhi route
in 1912.
• In UK. full comprehensive interlocking became a legal
requirement by 1880s.
 Early developments (contd)
• Simultaneously, simple electrical communication between
stations 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 system
known as the Absolute Block System.
• By the 1880s, Absolute Block system was also a compulsory
legal requirement in UK.
• The system was gradually refined and interlocking between
the Block Instrument and the signals was also provided.
 Early developments (contd)
• Accidents still happened because signallers forgot
where trains might be standing for long periods. A
Rule (rule 55) was therefore made that if a train
stopped at a signal for more than three minutes,
either the guard or the fireman had to walk to the
cabin to formally remind the signaller of the
presence of the train.
• We have a similar rule on IR. Rule 4.44 of GR
prescribes a waiting period of 5 minutes.
 Further developments
• The next development was the Track Circuit that
could 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 Bombay
area during 1928.
 Further developments (contd)
• The manual operation of points and signals
imposed a limit on the distance up to which a
cabin could control them. At large stations, a
number of cabins were necessary.
• Invention of electrical point machines and
electrical signal machines removed this restriction.
• In 1923, colour light signals were introduced for
the first time. In 1926, standards were laid down
for the meanings of the colours which are in use
till today.
 Further developments (contd)
• Conventional Colour Light Signals use
filament 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 maintenance
free.
 Longer Lasting Lights
Light emitting diodes have been fitted to 25 ground position lights around Oxford
station in a programme designed to reduce maintenance requirements. Traditional
lights often have a short bulb life; trials with the LEDs, developed by Amey and
Dorman Traffic Products, showed an 800% improvement in failure rates is possible.
The new units cost £750 to replace, but the maintenance frequency improves from
quarterly to annually, giving a three year cost recovery.

Trials are currently underway at

Reading for theatre lights and
junction indicators using LEDs.

Westinghouse Rail Systems has

gained Railtrack approval for its
new SL35 long life signal
lamp. Standard lamps are replaced
at approximately every 1,000hrs,
however the long life lamp,
promoted by Westinghouse as 'the
next best solution to the
LED signal', should last for
8,000hrs.
Modern Railways, December 2001, p 14
 Further developments (contd)
• Invention of electromechanical relays,
along with the introduction of colour light
signals and electric point machines enabled
use of relay interlockings operated from
Panels provided with push buttons and
illuminated indications.
 Further developments (contd)
• To pass signalling information from track-side to a
moving locomotive, Automatic Warning System was
developed 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 actual
speed of the train
• The most significant development took place during
mid 1980s. A microprocessor based Solid State
Interlocking system was developed.
 Further Trends
• European Train Control System (ETCS):
– For AWS and ATC, different manufacturers (in
Europe) developed different designs, which
were not compatible with one another.
– To overcome this problem, specifications have
been developed so that equipment of various
manufacturers becomes compatible. This will
give freedom to Railways to use equipment of
any manufacturer.
 Further Trends (Contd.)
• Moving Block concept:
– If Braking distance and an extra margin is
available in front of a moving train, it can move
safely. This gave rise to Moving Block concept.
– For its working, information about condition of
occupancy of track ahead of a train must reach
the on-board computer of the train continuously
on a real time basis.