Indian Railways completes 173 years of operations on April 16. It’s come a long way from the first train that ran between Bombay and Thane on April 16, 1853, with 400 passengers over 34 kilometres. Today, Indian Railways runs about 25,000 trains every day and ferries a staggering 741 crore passengers annually. The Union Budget for FY27 has allocated Rs 2.78 lakh crore to Railways. This is the highest the sector has ever received.
Here are five key transformations that the Indian Railways have gone through, and the mega investment in recent times.
Big money, long-term bets
With a huge allocation that Railways received during the Budget, part of that money is going into ambitious high-speed rail plans. The Mumbai–Ahmedabad bullet train project, designed for speeds of up to 320 kmph, is already under construction. Seven more corridors, spanning around 4,000 km, are on the drawing board.
At the same time, investments continue in basics; 35 new cargo terminals were added this year, and 119 stations have been redeveloped.
More trains, more passengers, heavier freight
Railways carried 741 crore passengers in 2025–26, while freight movement hit a record 1,670 million tonnes, with the revenue standing at around Rs 80,000 crore, as per Railway Ministry data.
To keep up, the system is running about 25,000 trains daily. Over 54,600 km of tracks have been renewed since 2014, and more than 80% of the network can now support speeds above 110 kmph, compared to just 40% a decade ago.
Two Indias, two kinds of trains
What’s interesting is how Railways is now catering to very different segments of passengers at the same time. On one side is the Vande Bharat Express, sleek, semi-high-speed trains aimed at faster travel. These carried nearly 4 crore passengers in FY26 alone, with total ridership crossing 9 crore since launch. A sleeper version, introduced earlier this year, is already seeing early traction, as per the Railway Ministry.
On the other side are Amrit Bharat trains, non-AC, lower-cost services designed for long-distance travel by regular passengers. About 60 of these are now running across the network.
Electrification of Railway network
One of the most significant shifts has happened behind the scenes. As of March 2026, 99.6% of the broad gauge network is electrified, up sharply from just about 20% in 2014, according to data provided by the Railways Ministry and PIB.
Railways estimates it saved around 180 crore litres of diesel in 2024–25 alone, translating into roughly Rs 6,000 crore in savings. Electric trains are also cheaper to run, about 70% more economical than diesel, making this transition as much about costs as it is about sustainability, as per PIB.
Tech gradually becoming the backbone
A lot of the transformation is less visible to passengers but just as important. Railways has rolled out a digital backbone across stations, with over 1,300 locations now connected through a high-capacity telecom network. Safety systems like Kavach, meant to prevent collisions, have been deployed on over 3,100 km, with much more under implementation.
As per the PIB data, AI-enabled surveillance is available at nearly 1,900 stations, and real-time passenger information systems are available at over 1,400 stations.
Still the country’s everyday lifeline
The journey from steam engines to an almost fully electric network is less about nostalgia and more about how a 173-year-old system is trying to keep up with a very different India. The mega allocations and continuous infra investment is what industry observers are watching out for.