10 facts about Indian Railways that you should know before the Rail Budget

10. Indian Railways earns about 70 of its revenues from freight traffic ( 686.2 billion from freight and 304.6 billion from passengers in 2011 12). Most of its profits come from transporting freight, and this makes up for losses on passenger traffic.

9. A locomotive comprises 4 or 5 letters. The first letter denotes the track gauge, the second letter denotes their motive power, Diesel or Alternating current (Electric), and the third letter denotes the kind of traffic for which they are suited (goods, passenger, Multi or shunting). The fourth letter used to denote locomotives' chronological model number. However, from 2002 a new classification scheme has been adopted. Under this system, for newer diesel locomotives, the fourth letter will denote their horsepower range.

The world's first CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) locomotives are also being used. On January 15, union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu flagged off the first CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) based train from Haryana's Rewari station.

7. As for rolling stock, IR holds over 245,267 Freight Wagons, 66,392 Passenger Coaches and 10,499 Locomotives (43 steam, 5,633 diesel and 4,823 electric locomotives). The trains have a 5 digit numbering system and runs 12,617 passenger trains and 7421 freight trains daily.

6. Indian Railways is the world's seventh largest commercial or utility employer, by number of employees, with over 1.376 million employees as of last published figures in 2013.

5. Large scale corruption by British officials involved in the running of these railways companies was rampant. Profits were never reinvested in the development of British colonial India.

4. The Allahabad Jabalpur branch line of the East Indian Railway had been opened in June 1867. Brereton was responsible for linking this with the GIPR, resulting in a combined network of 6,400 km (4,000 mi). Hence it became possible to travel directly from Bombay to Calcutta. This route was officially opened on 7 March 1870 and it was part of the inspiration for French writer Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days.

3. Railways were first introduced to India in the year 1853 from Mumbai to Thane. In 1951 the systems were nationalised as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Its operations cover twenty nine states and seven union territories and also provides limited international services to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

2. In 2014 15, IR carried 8.397 billion passengers annually or more than 23 million passengers a day (roughly half of whom were suburban passengers) and 1058.81 million tons of freight in the year.

1. Owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways Indian Railways is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km (71,000 mi) of track over a route of 65,808 km (40,891 mi) and 7,112 stations.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is all set to announce the Rail Budget for the financial year 2016 17 on February 25. This year's budget is expected to focus on massive capacity creation in the rail sector with an increased outlay of about Rs 1.25 lakh crore. Before the budget announcement let's take a look at 10 facts about the Indian Railways.