Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tot ...

operates

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

's railway system and comes under the purview of the

Ministry of Railways A Ministry of Railways is a Cabinet department that exists or has existed in many Commonwealth states as well as others. It generally occurs in countries where railroad transportation is a particularly important part of the national infrastructure. ...

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. Indian Railways operates more than 4000 cargo and goods trains daily. It hauls variety of

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

to cater to various requirements and have specialized rolling stock corresponding to the cargo hauled. Indian Railways uses a specific wagon numbering system, adopted in 2003.

Classification

Wagons are allocated 11 digit codes for identification. The first two digits indicate the

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

type, the next two digits indicate wagon ownership, the fifth and sixth digits indicate the year of manufacture, the seventh through tenth digits indicate unique wagon number and the last digit is a

check digit A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity ...

Wagon type

These two digits indicate the type of wagon. There are 243 types of

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...

used for cargo operations. These include

covered wagon The covered wagon or prairie wagon, historically also referred to as an ambulance or prairie schooner, was a vehicle usually made out of wood and canvas that was used for transportation, prominently in 19th-century America. With roots in the he ...

boxcar A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most ...

flat wagon Flat wagons (sometimes flat beds, flats or rail flats, US: flatcars), as classified by the International Union of Railways (UIC), are railway goods wagons that have a flat, usually full-length, deck (or 2 decks on car transporters) and little ...

s, flatbeds,

open wagon Open wagons (trucks in the UK) form a large group of railway goods wagons designed primarily for the transportation of bulk goods that are not moisture-retentive and can usually be tipped, dumped or shovelled. The International Union of Ra ...

hopper Hopper or hoppers may refer to: Places *Hopper, Illinois * Hopper, West Virginia * Hopper, a mountain and valley in the Hunza–Nagar District of Pakistan * Hopper (crater), a crater on Mercury People with the name * Hopper (surname) * Grace H ...

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

s, automobile carriers, defense vehicle carriers and tankers. Indian Railways BCNHL freight wagon

; Wagon type code

Wagon ownership

These third and fourth digits indicate the wagon ownership. This might correspond to specific railway zone or other entities.

Year of manufacture

These fifth and sixth digits indicate the last two digits of the year of manufacture. For example, a wagon manufactured in 2016 will have a code of 16.

Individual Wagon number

Seventh to tenth digits indicate a unique four-digit individual wagon number. This is a running serial number from 0001 to 9999 with numbers from 0001 to 0999 indicating wagons used by departments of Indian Railways and numbers 1000 to 9999 are for other traffic.

Check digit

The last digit is a check digit, which is calculated using a six-step algorithm as indicated below. Let the first ten digits be represented by C1 to C10 with C1 being the first digit, C2 the second digit and so on.
''Step 1 '': Starting from the left, add all the characters in the even position. S1 = C2 + C4 + C6 + C8 + C10
''Step 2 '': Multiply the sum by 3 to get S1 x 3
''Step 3 '': Starting from the left, add all the Characters in the odd position. S2 = C1 + C3 + C5 + C7 + C9
''Step 4 '': Add the sum of step 2 to the sum of step 3 to get S4 = S1 x 3 + S2
''Step 5 '': Round this total up to the next multiple of 10.
''Step 6 '': The check digit is the number required to the added to round up to the next multiple of 10. If the total is already a multiple of 10, the check digit will be zero. For example, if the first ten digits are given by ''3110169521''
''Step 1 :'' S1 = C2 + C4 + C6 + C8 + C10 = 1 + 0 + 6 + 5 + 1 = 13
''Step 2 :'' S1 × 3 = 39
''Step 3 :'' S2 = C1+ C3 + C5 + C7 + C9 = 3 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 2 = 16
''Step 4 :'' S4= S1 × 3 + S2 = 39 + 16 = 55
''Step 5 :'' Next 10th multiple of 55 = 60
''Step 6 :'' Check digit = 60 - 55 = 5
Hence the eleventh digit is assigned as 5 for this particular wagon.

References

{{Indian Railways Railway coaches of India Rail transport operations