Abstract—Railways were the most important development from the point of view of the infrastructure in India from 1850 to 1947. In present scenario Indian Railways has become the prime mover of the Indian Economy. Railways in India in the sense of transportation are the only reliable and feasible source on land. Indian Railways (IR) is one of the largest railway systems in the World. According to Vision 2020 proposed by Indian Railways Ministry, a significant focus would be on Track Enhancement, Environmental Sustainability, Network Expansion of Railway, Capacity Creation, Train Safety, Reducing Carbon Footprint, High Speed Train Introduction and Technological Excellence. There are enormous challenges. It aims to develop a world class rail infrastructure as countries like USA, China etc. This paper presents the recent developments in Railways in developed countries, limitations and problems that are associated with Railways. Also an impression of Indian Railways at the global level will be presented. Solutions and visions that are proposed by Indian Government to meet and to match the technological development with the developed countries will also be discussed in this paper.

Index Terms—Capacity Creation, Economy, Network Expansion, Transportation, Indian Railway, High speed trains

Cite: Sunil Kumar Sharma and Anil Kumar, "A Comparative Study of Indian and World Wide Railways," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Special Issue, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 114-120, January 2014.