Overseas

The Mumbai Suburban Railway

Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) is one of the largest cities in India with a population of about 13.7 million people - that is 13 times the population of Birmingham and nearly two times the population of London! As you would expect many people use the railway system making it the most commonly used mode of transport.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway carries more than 6.3 million passengers on a daily basis. The trains become very busy and overcrowded at peak times creating a major problem. 4,700 passengers can be packed into a rail car during peak hours, when the maximum should only be 1,700! High speed trains are to be used in the near future and this should help solve the overcrowding problem.

The first railways built in India were completed by the British in 1853. The first train ran between Mumbai and Thane, a distance of 34 kilometres (km).

The Japanese Railway

Japan has a large and efficient transport network with rail and underground transport being the most widely used, especially for travel between and around major cities. Every region of Japan, except Okinawa, is covered by the railway network which is around 12,400 miles long.

Shinkansen (Bullet Train) is Japan’s high-speed rail system with trains travelling up to 300km per hour (186 miles per hour). Each line has its own name (e.g. Tokaido, Tohoku), and each type of train is identified by a name (e.g. Nozomi, Hikari ). Since it opened over 40 years ago, the Shinkansen network has carried over 6 billion passengers.

Japan's railways carry 22.63 billion passengers each year. In comparison, Germany’s railway carries only 1.5 billion passengers per year.

At busy times, like when everyone is going to school or work, ‘pushers’ are required to help push passengers into the rail or underground carriages to ensure the train can depart on time. Because there is so much overcrowding in the carriages, many Japanese railway companies have introduced woman only carriages, so that women, men and children are not all squashed together in one carriage.

The Swedish Railways

Swedish Railways are called SJ and it is run by the Swedish State/Government through the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

There are 70,000 passengers who take the train for work, school or holidays each day in Sweden and SJ sells 40 million train journeys each year.

SJ have long-distance, regional and local services. Their high speed train is called X 2000 and its maximum speed is 220km per hour.

The longest journey with SJ trains is 1,400km (from Copenhagen in Denmark to Björkliden in the north of Sweden).

SJ buys only renewable electricity from hydroelectric and wind-powered sources for its trains, so they are very environmentally friendly. When travelling from Stockholm to Gothenburg (456km) on the high speed train the emissions of carbon dioxide is only 3g. When travelling the same distance in a car the emissions of carbon dioxide are about 45kg and in an airplane they are about 70kg.

3,200 staff work at SJ - 29% of these drive the trains, 31% provide onboard service, 18% sell tickets and 21% do the planning and administration.