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Young World
Techie Taffy
PAROMITA PAIN
Do you love train journeys? They can be exciting, isn’t it? Railways the world over are today rather taken for granted. They seem to just be there wherever we go, but they have a rich history and its fun to know more about them. Take a trip with Techie as he travels the information super high way stumbling on delightful facts about trains.
It’s always nice to begin with the Wikepedia. The page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport is a storehouse of info on not just railways today but also the whole evolution of the transport system.
Among the many interesting facts it has includes, “The earliest evidence of a railway found thus far was the 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos wagonway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece since around 600 B.C.”
While the Greeks did beat us to it, India wasn’t too far behind. The http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-hist.html is a lovely page developed by the IRFCA, the Indian Railways Fan Club. Techie knows the first question you will like to ask is “When did the first train run in India?” and thanks to the site Techie can give you the answer promptly. “The customary answer to this question is 3:35pm on April 16, 1853, when a train with 14 railway carriages and 400 guests left Bombay’s Bori Bunder for Thane, with a 21-gun salute.” Many of the facts on the site are presented like this — in order and in a way that the info doesn’t seem overwhelming.
We owe our railways to the British so take a quick glance at the http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/railways.htm to know more about the people who made the British railways a success. Look at Samit Roychoudhury’s site, History of the Indian Railways, A Chronological History of India’s Railways at http://samit.org/nid/hod1.htm. A “History of Design” project at the National Institute of Design, it has lovely pictures and is a well designed piece that is a pleasure to look at and read.
Have fun travelling!
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