Buddhist Spiritual Tour by Rail

Railway Industry of India is one of the oldest in the World. It was started during the British Rule. It had a small network then. Later on it expanded and formed network all across India. Today there are thousands of services connecting capital cities, metropolitan cities as well the rural areas. This rail routes helped connect urban to rural  areas. The transportation system has proved to be the most affordable travel mode across India.

Today this industry is servicing millions of passenger everyday all across the country. With increasing number of passengers the service has also improved. Earlier it was just travelling commodity and now it has started providing comfortable travels across any location. Tourism has boomed because of the growth of railways in India. This has come about by the initiation of IRCTC. This is a subsidiary of Indian Railways.

There are many facilities made available on board to the travelers. These facilities are in classified according to the class of travel chosen by customer. The class specifies which bogies they will be boarding for journey.

Along with introducing classes for travel and meals over the services IRCTC also started introducing holiday packages for pilgrimage places and tourist locations. Some special holiday trains were also introduced  primarily for tourism. One such holiday and tourism service introduced is Buddhist Circuit Train. It is more popularly known as Mahaparinirvan Express.

The train is enrooted for various Buddha related locations across two states Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It takes around the following locations: Birth place Lumbini, Bodh Gaya where Buddha achieved enlightenment, Varanasi where he preached and Kushinagar where he passed away.  The bogies of this service are all air conditioned and the seating arrangement in classes 1AC coupe, 1AC, 2AC and 3AC.  The train tour takes 7 nights and 8 days. The payment of the tour is inclusive of food across journey and has clean and hygienic pantry facility.

History of Indian Railway

The plan of building railway in India was put forward from London in 1940. British wanted the railway in India to build economic ties within two countries; India and Great Britain. In 1843 an engineer Graham Clark stepped in the Mumbai harbour. He came for the investigation for where the railway construction can be done and the cotton can be transported.

The railway dawned in 16th April 1853 in India. The first train ran from Mumbai (that time Bombay) to Thane. The journey started at 3:35pm with 400 passengers. That trains had 14 bogies. It covered the distance of 33.81km in one hour and 15 minutes. However it was first commercial train run in India. Many trains were run for hauling purpose before that. On 15thAugust 1854 the second train started from Howrah to Hubali. On 1st July 1856 in South India, Vyasarpadi was joined to Royapuram with third train.

In 1845 the railway was constructed for carrying stone and other manufacturing purpose for irrigation. Subsequently the manufacture of railway parts and construction of railway was commenced in different parts of the country.  In 1895 our nation started to manufacture own parts. In few time many states got their independence in the railway constructions and operations. The remote regions like Rajasthan, Assam, Andhra Pradesh were also joined to the main parts of country. The railway joined the various parts of the India as well. It brought many intended and unintended consequences in the country.  It bound nation’s traditional, cultural, commercial, social fabrics.