Out of all the major railway junctions of India, the most popular one is the CST. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, previously known as the Victoria Terminus or VT, is Mumbai’s biggest railway station. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and also the headquarters of the Central Railway, which has many interesting facts to its name. Let us read a few.

The first railway station of the country:

On 16th April, 1853, the iconic first passenger train of the country was operated by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. It covered a distance of 40kms from Borivali to Thane, and gave birth to the Indian Railways. CST was eventually named as Victoria Terminus after the then Queen, but subsequently came to be popularly known as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, after the Maratha 17th century king. CST is also one of the oldest railway stations all over the world. Most particular aspect of the station is the dome, seen in many famous Bollywood movies. After the 26/11 attacks, the beauty of the station was partially diminished. Damaged portions were rebuilt and the station is as beautiful as before.

The reason for constructing the station:

The station was designed by the famous designer Frederick William Stevens. Also, influences from the Victorian and Gothic revival along with the traditional Mughal architecture, was used in the construction. The station was constructed in 1887 to mark the Golden Jubilee of the great Queen Victoria. It was after the construction of this station that the railway became popular in India.

Total time taken in its construction:

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus took a total of 10 years for its completion. This is the longest time taken for constructing any railway station in India. The station is an architectural landmark built in the Gothic-revival architecture as the headquarters for the central Railway. The brilliant architect has been there for over a 100 years. The station is always very crowded with over 200 trains running to and from the station daily.

The renaming of the station in 1996:

The Railway Minister of India, Suresh Kalmadi, in 1996, changed the name Victoria Terminus to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus after the leader and founder of the great Maratha dynasty, Chhatrapati Shivaji. However, even now, most people call it as VT station, especially the taxi drivers of Mumbai.

The total number of commuters:

Along with being a UNESCO world heritage site, this Terminus is the very soul of the commercial capital. Every single day, around 3 million commuters use the station for traveling either to the various suburbs of the city or to anywhere else in the country. The local train passengers outnumber the express train passengers. The local trains itself are a pride of Mumbai.

If you are planning a visit to Mumbai from a distant place, get your Indian railways reservation online.

It is said that a visit to Mumbai is incomplete without seeing the iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. So even if you go by flight, do not miss to visit the railway station!

People these days are glued to their phones and most youngsters travel by the train for college and work. Since at some stations the signals are awfully low, Wi-Fi can help. Well, Indians railways will soon have high speed Wi-Fi in trains across 400 stations in India.

Google will be helping the rail sector to get Wi-Fi for all the convenient stations across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited the U.S headquarters of Google and asked them to participate to help India become Digital; Google India too has taken a major step to help the people, who want access to the web.

The Indian Railways operated one of the largest rail networks and Rail Tel, Google’s team is working on bringing high speed internet to major stations in the next few months. The CEO of Google India has stated that the network will expand in a jiffy and reach some of the busiest stations across the country by the end of 2016. He also added that the speed is going to be fast and will have no problems at all.

People who are bored whilst travelling will soon be able to enjoy and download games, videos, movies, songs and much more by this Wi-Fi network. Google India is also planning to expand at almost every station possible with the help of Rail Tel and other partners, in the coming future.

Google had also launched the Android One in the previous year to help all the people to get access of smartphones and internet to explore and learn more. They have also made YouTube and Google Maps available offline plus you can download web pages faster without spending your data balance. There is nothing Google isn’t doing to help the people.

Not just all this but to also help those who cannot read or speak English, Google India had launched the Indian Language Internet Alliance in the previous year. This service has been helping a lot of people who do not have any access to English language. Hindi searches, keyboards and supports have made it easier for every person to use the web pages.

We are sure this Wi-Fi project is going to make life easier for everyone travelling daily by the trains. This is also a good mode for the safety of women and young kids, who have internet features in their phones. People will soon be able to quickly Google search any emergency numbers and contacts when they need it.

The Railway Board has a new idea to incorporate vacuum and Bio toilets. This new type of toilet will be known as the ‘hybrid vacuum toilet.’ Stinking washrooms have always been an issue in every train. More and more passengers are becoming hygiene conscious these days. On Monday, a trail run of the vacuum toilets was launched on Dibrugarh Rajdhani. There will be an observation made for few days regarding this new service.

The hybrid vacuum toilet has been fitted in the First AC coach. This service has cost around 3 lakh and it is also equipped with bio-digester system. Many who have travelled by aircrafts are aware about vacuum toilets.

According to the plan decided, the railway sector will be installing 80 hybrid vacuum toilets on Shatabdi Express. The rail sector has floated worldwide tenders for the installation of the toilets at a cost of around Rs. 25 crore. Multinational companies from across the world like USA, Spain, Germany and Denmark have also shown keen interest in the installing project, stated an official who is a part of the project.

The best part about the entire project is that the toilets are environment-friendly and the consumption of water will be lesser than before. Also, the cleanliness factor matters a lot. The same vacuum toilet will be installed at New Delhi Railway station also. For now, trains like Shatabdi and Rajdhani have been equipped with the bio toilets featuring controlled discharge system. An official, who is part of this project, stated that the waste automatically gets discharged after the trains gain the speed of 30 km per hour thus preventing the disposal at the stations.

Till now 17,388 toilets have been replaced with the new bio-toilets. More 17,000 will be replaced by the end of the year.

This is a good way to save water since a conventional toilet takes up 10 to 12 litres of water per flush whereas a vacuum toilet only takes up around 500 ml of water per flush. Most of the foreign countries use the vacuum toilet system in their trains. And since the Indian Railways are all set to modernize and change the railway systems in India, this change was important and will be helpful.

Indian railways are soon going to become different, modern and better! Japan is going to contribute towards modernizing 400 railway stations all across the country. Not just this, but Japan will also invest $140 billion for Indian Railways in the next five years.

The project is all set to begin and the first step is going to be of studying opportunities. A Japanese delegation is going to visit India anytime soon and research and see what opportunities are there for the industries in the development plans for Indian Railways. 400 stations will be upgraded across India.

Suresh Prabhu, India’s Railway Minister was recently in Japan and he discussed to make cooperation in order to strengthen the rail sector. He had several high level conferences with Mr. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese PM, Taro Aso Deputy PM and Finance Minister with few other seniors and ministers. Suresh Prabhu highlighted that Indian Railways needs to be a major destination towards infrastructure investment.

The discussion also included the fact that certain areas of the railways need to be modernized and there has to be technological upgrade with the help of Japanese railways and companies. Japan has agreed to modernise and upgrade. Other than that, they have also agreed in assisting India’s public transport in reaching the zero-accident mission.

A MoU will be signed by the Research Designs & Standards Organisation with the Railway Technical Research Institute of Japan to start out the project and researches to finalise the plan.

Mr. Prabhu had also held few other meetings with the heads of some of the leading financial institutions in which he highlighted the investment plan for the Indian Railways. Apart from modernizing and developing railway stations, Japan will also help the Indian rail sector in providing expert tips and technology to maintain sanitation issues and also to develop clean, odourless toilets at the stations and in the trains.

Not just this but the country is also planning out developments in Indian Railways for high speed railway in India.

We hope that Suresh Prabhu, who is on a two-nation trip to Japan and Korea since the 7^th of September gears in Korea to provide investments and resources for the development of Indian Railways.

For all those who want to visit their loved ones for Deepavali this year can take benefits of the special support the Indian Railways started in the month of July. The advance reservations opened from July 9^th, 8 am onwards. This 120 days scheme has been good for those who wanted to acquire their seats on certain crowded trains.

Though Diwali is going to be celebrated on the November 10^th this year, there are some people who are planning to go out of their houses to celebrate the festival from November 6^th. This was a major reason why this year the reservations started in the month of July.

According to sources, most people have booked their tickets for the weekend that is Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This early advantage has shown an increase in the bookings. This new booking scheme came in force on April 1^st 2015. We must say that this has been quite a successful idea.

People have also made multiple bookings on different dates that are not sure about their travel dates. Other than this, all the refunds of the tickets will be done through the banking systems.

For all those who missed out this special service in the month of July can still head to the IRCTC website or to their respective stations to make train reservations for Diwali festival. The special trains are yet to be announced.

The Railways had introduced special trains for Kawad Yatra, which was a successful plan since most of the devotees benefitted through the service. Not just Deepavali, but there are special trains for Durja Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi, which are going to be a major help for all the travellers, who go from one place to another to celebrate these festivals.

Apart from all this, the Railway Minister came out with another special benefit for the travellers. The differently abled passengers will have an exclusive support by which they can buy concessional e-tickets after one time registration. The growth in the rail sector is commendable, and soon, we will have a modernised pattern with high end stations for our services.

Suresh Prabhu, the Railway Minister, announced to a gathering, in a function held at Pernem Railway Station, where had gone to flag off the train between Pernem and Karwar,  that his ministry will form SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) with 17 states in the country to develop the railway infrastructure.

The Minister said that they are making special purpose vehicles with each state separately and there are 17 states that have shown interest in this idea. He also added that it would be a joint project. He stated that Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states are not a part of this scheme.

In a candid interview, Suresh Prabhu spilled some more details regarding this plan. “We will create special purpose vehicles for 17 states. These states as well as the centre will invest the capital. All this will be used for the development of railway infrastructure.” The Minister recently went out to meet some biggies of corporate and banking companies in Maharashtra and expects an investment of Rs 10,000 crore for upcoming 5 years from them for this company.

He also said that all the states are gradually accepting the idea and are interested in signing. “Together we can develop additional structure and also extra bandwidth,” the Minister said. Other than this, he also declared 250 additional trains especially for the forthcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival, which is celebrated across Maharashtra’s Konkan region and Goa in September.

“The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is the most celebrated and important festival in Goa, and we have decided to run around 250 additional trains to clear off the rush.” A lot of railways divisions like the Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd, Southern railway, Central railway and many others will be pitching in to commence these special trains.

Not just this but the Railway Minister has more in store for the rail sector. He also announced that 17 stations on KRCL route will be having Wi-Fi services and escalators, including Margao, Ratnagiri, Kankavali and Thivim stations. Besides these, he has also proposed the plan of putting water vending machines at the stations to help the passengers. The bottled water rate is moderate and affordable to all.

The Minister also had meetings in Mumbai few days ago where he let out his idea to modernise Indian Railways and asked reputed public and private sector companies to fund some amounts in order to help in the betterment of the rail sector.

With all this ongoing, we are sure that the Indian Railways are going to become better and better for passengers.