With around 67,000 kilometres of railway track India’s railway network is 25 times the size of Vietnam’s railway network, which has around 2,600 km of railway track. If you compare the amount of railway track in each country to the size of the country India (which covers an 3,287,263 square kilometres) has 1 km of railway track for every 49 square kilometre of land, compared to 1 km of track for every 127 square kilometre of land in Vietnam (which covers an area of 331,212 square kilometres). On that basis India’s railway network cover about a 2.5 times higher proportion of the country’s land mass compared to Vietnam’s railway network.
About Train Travel in India
India’s railway network is massively important to the country both as a system of transport and also an employer. India Railways employs over 1.2 million people making it the 14th largest employer in the world. The size of the railway operation in India is staggering also. It operates over 12,000 locomotives, compared to only 365 currently in use in Vietnam.
Electrified railway line in IndiaThe other striking feature of railway services in India are the diversity in the types of service on offer. Around 60% of the railway network is electrified, and on the other 40% a wide range of independently powered locomotives, including both steam and diesel trains, are in operation. On both the electrified and non-electrified track the services on offer range from very slow, travelling at top speeds of 50 kph, to high speed services travelling up to 180 kph. For passengers the flip side of this wide range of choice, and ticket prices, is that ticket booking can be a confusing process. Getting on the wrong type of train or buying the wrong type of ticket can turn what should be a pleasurable trip with great scenery into slow and uncomfortable experience that could have been easily avoided with better information about the options available. To this information you simply need to use the search box below which will connect you a full list of trains and ticket types (available to book online) for your journey.
Popular Train Journeys in India
Train services in India are popular for tourist travel. Whilst you can generally do the same journey by plane or by bus much more quickly, many train journeys in India take passengers past fantastic scenery which you simply wouldn’t see from the air or travel by road. The other advantage of travel by train is that using sleeper trains allows you travel overnight, saving on the cost of a hotel, and arriving at your new destination in morning ready for another exciting day of sightseeing.
The scenic Kalka to Shimla Railway LineAmongst the best train journeys in India are:
- Kalka to Shimla: 5 to 6 hour journey by steam train ascending 1,419 metres to the former summer capital of British India.
- Jaisalmer to Jaipur: 12 to 13 hour journey across India’s desert state of Rajasthan between two of its most interesting cities.
- Delhi to Agra: The train journey most commonly taken by foreign visitors to India connecting the capital city to the Agra, which is the location of the Taj Mahal.
- Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram: A journey of 46 to 55 hours linking Delhi to the capital city of the southern state of Kerala.
- Mumbai to Chennai: A journey of 23 to 28 hours from the West coast of India to the East coast, across the arid interior of the country.
Buy India Train Tickets
Use the Search Box below to buy your India train tickets in advance online.