Resources on the Web
Contents
IRFCA
- The IRFCA Server is the main web site hosting this FAQ as well as a lot of other Indian Railways related material.
- The IRFCA Forums host the discussions among IRFCA members on topics of railways. Also see the Forum Guidelines.
IR Link Collections
- A directory of official web sites of IR organizations from the Railway Board.
- 'Other Railway Sites' from the official IR website.
- Raildwar : The IR Portal (literally "Gateway to Rail") is a site with many official and unofficial IR links, maintained by IR staff.
Web sites by railfans: pictures, videos, sounds
- The IRFCA Gallery is hosted on this server and has a large collection of photographs and other material.
- Apurva Bahadur's train pictures, a large collection covering many different subjects. Also has diesel loco sound files.
- Archives of the erstwhile 'IR Showcase' which was a continuously changing exhibition of photographs relating to Indian Railways. Now archived at the IRFCA Gallery
- Bharat Vohra and Siddharth Joshi's Rail In India has IR pictures, including some photos of the last steam operations in India, and pictures of various classes of locomotives.
- Jay Balakrishna's IR Videos show diesel and electric traction around Bangalore.
- S Shankar's Indian Railways: A Kaleidoscope has a large number of photographs, links, and other material on IR and other railways in south Asia.
- Sundar Krishnamurthy's Indian train gallery has many dozens of of IR-related pictures.
- Rail World features many photographs by Viraf Mulla, I S Anand, Prakash Tendulkar and others. This includes diagrams and specifications of electric locomotives.
- Stormcatcher's Railnet is a site by Shashanka Nanda featuring many IR photographs.
- The EMD in India page in Larry Russell's EMD Export web site has pictures of several IR GM diesels.
- The Alco in India page of Rolf Stumpf's Alco World web site has pictures of IR Alco diesels.
- More sites: IRFCA members' pages hosted on irfca.org
Heritage and steam
- The web site of the National Rail Museum, New Delhi
- The web site of the Indian Steam Railway Society, New Delhi. More information in the organizations section.
- Classic Trains of India has details of many prestigious trains of the past.
- Don Dickens' page on the Patiala State Monorail.
- The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Supporters Association, Australia. More information in the organizations section.
- The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society, United Kingdom. More information in the organizations section.
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway web site by Geoff Wilkins.
- Dileep Prakash's Indian Steam site has a lot of information on steam locos, heritage, etc.
- Reports of steam in India from Rob Dickinson's International Steam website.
- Hill Railways of India from Mike's Railway History pages.
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, also from Mike's Railway History pages.
- Locomotive lists for India and south Asia detail steam survivors, industrial locomotives, etc.
Modelling Indian Railways
- Glyn Thomas's Indian Railways page has much material on IR steam, modelling IR, and research information, in addition to over 200 IR loco photographs in a searchable database.
- Dr Ken Walker's pages on IR modelling. Also has information and pictures of IR, especially the DHR.
- Joshi's Museum of Miniature Railways sells IR models.
Official IR and related web sites
- The Official site of Indian Railways on the web has information for passengers as well as organization details. IR also maintains a site for online travel planning and reservations. Also see the new [5/03] IR Train Enquiry site
- The Railway Board (Rail Bhavan) includes a directory of web sites of IR organizations with e-mail listings
- Raildwar : The IR Portal (literally "Gateway to Rail") is a site listing many official IR sites and many other IR-related links.
- The site of the IR Catering and Tourism Corporation is where online train reservations and ticketing can be done.
- Zonal railways that have their own web sites include:
- Western Railway's original web site (and another WR site)
- Central Railway
- Northern Railway (and another site)
- South Central Railway
- South Eastern Railway
- Southern Railway
- Eastern Railway (in development).
- Northeast Frontier Railway. See also their new site.
- North Eastern Railway.
- North Western Railway.
- West Central Railway.
- Konkan Railway
- Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
- More sites listed below in the additional links section
Timetables, reservations, etc.
Official sites such as those of Indian Railways, Western Railways, Southern Railway, and others have schedules, current status, service rules, etc.
Maps and atlases
- See the map section of this FAQ first!
- A few maps and track layouts are in the Layouts & Maps albums of the photo gallery.
- A map of the railway network organized by organized by railway zone, from the official IR site.
- Many railway maps can be found at Mapsofindia.com; select a region or state to see road, rail, and other maps.
- An interactive railway network map with distance calculations, that allows one to focus in on individual states, from MapsOfIndia.
- A map of Mumbai's (Bombay's) suburban railways is available at Mumbainet.
- The University of California at Berkeley has a collection of 1:250,000 topographic maps of India and Pakistan, most dating to the 1950s.
Mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups
- Mailing lists -- India / Subcontinent
- ISRS-mail is a mailing list for members of the Indian Steam Railway Society. Membership must be approved by the moderator.
- IRFCA News is a mailing list for news having to do with IR. Announcements-only; no discussions. (Digests of news from here are posted to IRFCA.)
- DHRChat is a mailing list for discussion of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.
- DelhiMetro is a mailing list for discussion of the Delhi Metro system and related topics.
- Modelling IR is a mailing list for IR modellers to exchange information.
- Indian Railways Heritage Support Group is a mailing list concerned with preservation efforts.
- Kolkata Bus & Tram Fan Club is a mailing list for discussion of trams and buses all over India, despite the name, although focusing on the Kolkata (Calcutta) trams.
- Mumbai Metro is a mailing list for discussion of mass transit in the Mumbai region.
- IR Technical is a mailing list for technical aspects of IR (membership is limited and by invitation only; however, message archives are public).
- PakistanRailways is a mailing list focusing on railways in Pakistan.
- India Highways is a mailing list for discussion of highways in India.
- Mailing lists -- World
- World Diesel Loco is a mailing list for discussion of diesel locomotives around the world.
- World Electric Loco is a mailing list for discussion of electric locomotives around the world.
- World Electric Multiple Unit is a mailing list for discussion of EMUs around the world.
- World Rail Gen is a mailing list for discussion of railways (generally other than the European mainland).
- Steam Tech is a mailing list for discussion of steam technology, and current steam revival efforts around the world.
- Asian Loco Shed is a mailing list for discussion of railways in Asia (mostly south-east Asia) which are not covered by other specific mailing lists.
- Usenet newsgroups
- misc.transport.rail.misc is a Usenet newsgroup which covers areas not covered by the other misc.transport.rail.* newsgroups that are focused on the Americas, Europe, and Australia / New Zealand.
- uk.railway is focused on rail in the United Kingdom, but sometimes has discussion of IR (mostly in a historical context), and of locos from India that have been restored in the UK.
- clari.biz.industry.transportation is a commercial Usenet newsgroup (operated by ClariNet) that carries news articles on transportation from around the world.
General railway/railroad sites (non-IR)
- TrainWeb has a lot of railway sites and information.
- The The Railroad Depot is a large collection of railway links.
- RailRing is a another web ring of railway sites.
- And Railway Site Ring is one more.
- Railfan.net is a network of sites run by rail enthusiasts.
- RailServe is a large rail-related directory of web sites, mailing lists, BBSs, societies, industry organizations, publications, museums, news, etc.
- RailroadData is another large directory of rail-related web sites.
- Mike's railway links has over 2,000 railway links.
- A collection of more railway links from The Unofficial Indian Railways Homepage
- National Model Railroad Association (NMRA).
- RailPictures.Net has railway pictures from around the world, including from India.
- Erik's Rail News is a site with railway industry news and press releases.
- Rail Times is another site with railway news.
- International Railway Journal carries news about railways and transit.
- General railway technical information can be found at TrainWeb's technical resources. Articles cover a wide variety of topics.
- The Ultimate Steam Page has details of recent and new steam efforts, technical articles, etc.
- The Railway Technology web site has links to railway companies, equipment suppliers, current projects, and industry organizations around the world.
- RailIndustry.com is a network of railway companies, vendors, and industry organizations, mostly focused on North America.
- The European Rail Server is a vast collection of pictures and other material on trains in Europe.
- The International Union of Railways (UIC) web site has information on railway publications, links to member railways, etc.
Additional Links
Formerly known as 'IR Superlinks', these links to online resources were created and maintained by S.Shankar, in collaboration with Apurva Bahadur and Vijay Balasubramanian.
Sites by railfans
- Steven Brown -- The (Unofficial) Indian Railways Homepage: http://www.trainweb.org/indiarail/
- Alok Bhatnagar -- IR Pension Helpline: http://www.irpension.org/
- Mike Brooker's 'Bharat Yatra': with links to some Indian Railway sites: http://webhome.idirect.com/~aum108/bharat.html
- Mrinal Das's Eastern Railways web site, 'RailIndia': http://railindia.tripod.com/
- Ronald Kappel: http://ronaldus.com/asmallworld/
- Vivek Manvi's IR pictures: http://www.indianrailways.8m.net/
- Sarosh Mehta's black and white images of Indian steam: http://members.tripod.com/yarird/bw/bw.htm Sarosh Mehta and Viraf Mulla's assorted railway photographs: http://members.tripod.com/irfca/
- Viraf Mulla, Sarosh and Shrinivas's steam images from Morbi and Wankaner: http://members.tripod.com/morewkr/morewkr/
- Nitish Naharas -- Travels in India, B&W photographs: http://www.naharas.com/html/india/traintravels/traintravels1.htm
- Peter's images of Pakistan Steam: http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/zh62/trains/pakist02.htm
- Samit Roychoudhury: http://www.samit.org/ Samit's Interactive IR Map: http://www.samit.org/irmap/
- Phil Wormald's India pages: http://www.locopage.net/india.html Also has Dave Craik's pictures and trip reports. Other pages on GE Exports, Alcos worldwide, etc. are also on Phil's site http://www.locopage.net.
- Dr. Shirish Yande's Rajkot trip pictures: http://members.tripod.com/~railcrazy/travel/travel1.htm Dr. Shirish's pics on the hill section of the Bhor Ghats between Bombay and Poona. http://members.tripod.com/railcrazy/TKW/Catch.htm
Official IR Sites
- Calcutta Metro Rail Corporation: http://business.vsnl.com/metrorly/
- Calcutta Tramways Corporation: http://www.calcuttatramways.com/
- Chittaranjan Loco Works (CLW) official website: http://www.clwindia.com/. Another site: http://www.irieen.com/clw.htm.
- Container Corporation of India:
- Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi: http://www.diesellocoworks.com/
- Delhi Metro Rail: http://www.delhimetrorail.com/.
- Diesel Loco Shed, Ernakulam: http://business.vsnl.com/locomotive/
- Indian Railways Personnel Service Officers: http://www.irps.in/
- Indian Railways Central Organization for Telecom (IRCOT): http://ircot.railnet.gov.in/
- Indian Railways Institute of Electrical Engineering: http://www.irieen.com/, Nasik,
- Institution of Permanent Way Engineers (IPWE): http://ipweindia.com/
- Integral Coach Factory: http://www.icf.gov.in/ at Chennai
- IRCON International Ltd. (formerly Indian Railways Construction Co.): http://www.irconinternational.com/
- Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Perambur, Chennai: http://www.icf.gov.in/
- Rail Coach Factory (RCF),Kapurthala: http://rcf.nic.in/
- RailCommerce (IR tenders and vendor development): http://www.railcommerce.net/TechForums/startup/right.pl
- Rail India Technical and Engineering Services: http://www.rites.com/
- Railway Staff College, Vadodara: http://www.rscbrc.ac.in/
- Research, Design, and Standards Organization: http://www.rdso.gov.in
- RailTel Corporation of India: http://www.railtelindia.com/
- Southern Railway Mechanical Workshops: http://business.vsnl.com/mechworkshops_srly/ (pages on Perambur Loco works and C&W works, Mysore Workshops, and Golden Rock Workshops.
- Southern Railway discussion forum: http://www.southernrailway.org/forum/default.asp
- Wheel and Axle Plant (Rail Wheel Factory), Yelahanka, Bangalore: http://www.wapindia.com/
Other Sites
- British Library -- search historical records, including railway employment recordshttp://www.bl.uk/
- National Railway Museum, York, England: http://www.nrm.org.uk/html/home_pb/menu.asp
- Rail Philatelist: http://www.railphilatelist.com/
- Continental Modeller magazine: This site has a link to the website of sister publication Railway Modeller: http://www.peco-uk.com/cm/cm_home.htm
- Garratt Locomotives Worldwide: http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/source.html
- Geoff Cryer: http://homepages.enterprise.net/geoffcryer/
- Great Railway Journeys: http://www.luxuryrail.com/
- Railway Museums of the World: http://www.innvista.com/culture/travel/rail/mindex.htm
- Railway Gazette International: http://www.railwaygazette.com/
- Sri Lanka Railways: along with information on railway modeling in Sri Lanka: http://www.infolanka.com/org/mrail/slrails.html
- Trams of the World: http://www.tramway.com/