About IRFCA
What is it??
IRFCA is an electronic mailing list or discussion group connecting many railfans particularly interested in railways in India, and with links to other railfan groups around the world. As of June 2008, there are about 6,000 members in the group. Mail traffic is moderately heavy, and runs around 30 to 50 messages a day most of the time. You can subscribe to a digest version, or just check the discussions on the web, if it is inconvenient to receive individual messages in your mailbox. Topics of discussion cover just about any aspect of railways in India. Discussions are in the English language.
Topics on IRFCA cover anything and everything having to do with trains in India! Many members are interested in current passenger services, routes, timetables, etc. Others are more interested in technical details of railway operations, motive power, rolling stock, etc. Yet others are interested in historical aspects of trains in India and the subcontinent. We also get travelogues and descriptions of railfanning trips made by members. Occasionally we also discuss railways in neighbouring countries or elsewhere in the world.
Members of IRFCA are also engaged in documenting railways in India photographically and otherwise (see the main page and the links there to the photo gallery, members' web pages, documents on IR, etc.).
Some members are also engaged in preservation and heritage awareness-building activities, and other activities related to IR, although those are not officially within the scope of the IRFCA mailing list.
See below for the history of IRFCA.
For instructions on joining the mailing list, see below. There are no dues or contributions required or requested for participation in the IRFCA mailing list, and there are no obligations or duties either, other than adherence to the group guidelines. You're welcome to join and just listen in on the conversations, although active participation in the discussions is encouraged.
Meetings and Trips Interaction among IRFCA members is not just by electronic mail. Occasionally, members of the IRFCA mailing list in a particular region may also meet in person to go railfanning at local train stations or on longer trips (by train, hiking, etc.), or sometimes just to chat about trains or watch videos, etc. There is no formal organization of the regional subgroups or 'chapters' of IRFCA. If you join the IRFCA mailing list, you will quickly find out who is in your vicinity and what activities are going on that you may be able to participate. Some member contact information is also available for you to get in touch with other IRFCA members.
In February 2006, the first IRFCA Convention was held at Pune and many railfans gathered for a day of discussions, presentations, and exchanging notes about IR. It is expected that this will become an annual feature with the convention being held at different cities each year. Subsequent conventions were held at Chennai and Kanpur.
How to join IRFCA
The mailing list is currently hosted by Yahoo Groups. You can subscribe by using the form below, which will take you to the Yahoo Groups sign-up page: enter the e-mail address where you want to receive the list messages and click the button.
If you prefer, you can visit the sign-up page directly: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irfca/join.
You will need a Yahoo id; if you do not have one, you will be led through the procedure for getting one from the sign-up page.
If you are unable to sign up over the web, you can also join the list by sending a (blank) e-mail message from the address where you would like to receive the list messages, to irfca-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. You will get a reply in response, with further instructions.
After you complete the sign-up procedure, you will be sent a request for more information by e-mail. You must reply to this message. This additional step helps us keep out spammers and those inadvertently signing up, as well as to understand your interests in IR and motivations for joining IRFCA.
If you experience difficulties signing up over the web or by e-mail, you can also send e-mail to the list administrators at webmaster
The history of IRFCA
The IRFCA Mailing List
IRFCA started with a few rail fans discussing Indian trains by e-mail on the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.indian. Mani Vijay (then Vijay Balasubramanian), along with Sankaran Kumar and Dheeraj Sanghi, proposed setting up a private e-mail list in order to allow the railfans to correspond directly and conveniently. The first incarnation of the list had just 9 members exchanging e-mail directly. The first list server with the name 'IRFCA' -- a name proposed by Mani Vijay and which was accepted over a few other names that were proposed -- was set up at the University of Maryland by Dheeraj Sanghi and was operational on August 29, 1989 (the address was irfca
The mailing list was later transferred to OneLIST in 1999 by Anurag Acharya. OneLIST later merged with eGroups, which was subsequently acquired by Yahoo Groups. During the first ten years or so (1989-1999) the membership remained small, at 50 to 100 members, and predominantly consisted of persons in the US, with some members in the UK.
With the spread of the Internet in recent years, especially in India, membership has been continuously rising. Currently [04/05] the list has more than 2800 members from several dozen countries (it's hard to estimate the number of countries from the e-mail addresses). The two biggest groups on the basis of members' locations are from India and the US. The next leading contingent is probably from the UK.
The IRFCA.org Web Site
The IRFCA server (this web site) was originally not a single web site. The Indian Railways FAQ was maintained on a Geocities web site, and the IRFCA.org domain had some Indian railfan material by Shanku Niyogi. Several other IRFCA members had their own web sites scattered across the net on Geocities, Tripod, and other hosting services. Later, Rangachari Anand acquired the domain IRFCA.org, hosted it on a web server shared with some other web sites, and all IRFCA-related material was consolidated on it. During this time, Anand and his friends generously paid for the upkeep of the site. In 2005, the popularity of the site, especially its picture gallery, and the resultant increase in the use of bandwidth and the need for more disk space resulted in the domain being hosted on its own web server where it is today. This has also resulted in the need to ask our friends all across the world to help in providing financial support for the site.
And what does the name IRFCA mean, anyway???
The name "IRFCA" stands for the "Indian Railways Fan Club". Why the extra "A"? The list's original name was "Indian Railways Fan Club of America" which was appropriate when the list began, as all the members were in the USA. When membership grew and more and more railfans from outside the USA joined, the original name became less accurate, but it was decided to keep the acronym.