The Largest and Busiest Rail Network The India's Rail transport is one of the biggest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting millions passengers and tones of cargo daily. Indian Railways also known as IR is a Department of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Railways and is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees and enjoys a monopoly on India's rail transport.
The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country; the routes cover a total length of 63,465 km (39,435 miles). As of 2005, IR owned a total of 222,379 wagons, 42,125 coaches and 7910 locomotives and ran a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains.
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on amulti-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. It also owns locomotive and coach production facilities.
Indian Railways operates about 9,000 passenger trains and transports 18 million passengers and more than 2 million tonnes of freight daily across twenty-eight states and two union territories. Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya are the only states not connected by rail. A standard passenger train consists of eighteen coaches, but popular trains can have up to 24 coaches.
Coaches are designed to accommodate anywhere from 18 to 108 passengers, but during the holiday seasons and/or on busy routes, more passengers may travel in unreserved coaches. Most regular trains have coaches connected through vestibules. , However, 'unreserved coaches' are not connected with the rest of the train via any vestibule.
Indian Railways manufactures much of its rolling stock and heavy engineering components at its six manufacturing plants, called Production Units, which are managed directly by the ministry. As with most developing economies, the main reason for this was the policy of import substitution of expensive technology related products when the general state of the national engineering industry was immature. Each of these six production units is headed by a General Manager, who also reports directly to the Railway Board.
There exist independent organisations under the control of the Railway Board for electrification,modernisation and research and design, each of which is headed by a General Manager. A number of Public Sector Undertakings, which perform railway-related functions ranging from consultancy to ticketing, are also under the administrative control of the Ministry of railways.

Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. As of May 2009, the Railway Ministry is headed by Mamata Banerjee, the Union Minister for Railways and assisted by two ministers of State for Railways. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board, which has a financial commissioner, five members and a chairman.