Indian Railways is the second-largest rail network in Asia and the fourth-largest across the globe. Lakhs of passengers use Indian Railways to travel every day. In all probability, you may have also used the services of Indian Railways and travelled on a train multiple times. But it is interesting to note that a lot of people do not know some intricate details painted on the train coaches. One example is coloured stripes on the coaches of trains. Most of us have either seen them or not bothered to know about what they stand for while others may have not noticed the details. However, let us tell you that the colours have certain indications and have not just been casually painted on the coaches.
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may have noticed that white or yellow stripes are painted above the last window of the blue ICF coach to indicate the type of coach. White stripes signify a General Coach, while yellow stripes are used on coaches designated for disabled and sick passengers. Indian Railways also reserves specific coaches for women, marked with grey stripes on a grey background. Additionally, first-class coaches are marked with red stripes on a grey background.

You may have noticed that most trains have blue coaches. These coaches mean that they are ICF coaches. That is, their speeds range from 70 to 140 kilometres per hour. Such coaches are fitted in Mail Express or Superfast trains. ICF air-conditioned (AC) trains use red-coloured coaches, such as Rajdhani Express. Green coaches are used in the poor chariot trains. At the same time, brown coaches are used in meter gauge trains. In the Mumbai local train network, red coloured lines are made over the grey colour to show the first-class coach.

There was a time when a significant portion of India’s population was illiterate. To address this, the Railways used symbols to convey important information about the train coaches to the passengers.