Page 142 - SST Class 07

the doorstep of a house or factory. Long highways
Chennai. In addition to them,
have been built ever since olden times to enable India is also building a large
traders and other people to travel over long number of flyovers in all parts
distances. The Grand Trunk road in India was
of India in order to decongest
built in the medieval period. traffic on roads.

A road can be metalled (pucca) or unmetalled Railways A flyover
(kuchcha).
Railways are a quick and cheap means of
An unmetalled road is usually found in a rural
transport. The invention of the steam engine and
area, which is fit for light transport, such as the Industrial Revolution in Europe led to the
animals, bullock carts, tractors etc. It is usually development of railways first in Europe and then
used as a link road which connects a rural area to
all over the world.
a main road.
The trains used to be run by steam engines, but
A metalled road is built for many purposes. It is they have been discarded in most of the countries.
built within a town to serve to the needs of the
At present, electric and diesel engines are used.
local people. It may be built to connect different
towns or countries even. Trains can be passenger trains or goods trains. A
passenger train chiefly carries passengers, while a
A highway is a broad and long road which goods train carries goods. A passenger train can
connects cities in different states or different
be slow or fast. Now, super fast trains are run in
countries. This type of a highway is built and almost all countries. The bullet trains in Japan and
maintained by the central government.
France run at a very high speed. In India, a large
number of express and super fast trains are run,
Info Bits such as the Rajdhani, the Shatabdi etc.
Info Bits

The longest highway in India is the NH7 between
Varanasi and Kanyakumari, covering 2369 km.

There are main roads which connect towns within
a state. These roads are called state highways . A
state government builds and maintains them.

It is easy to build roads in the plains, while it is
very difficult to build roads in deserts, rocky A goods train An express train
places and hilly areas. This is the reason that India
Info Bits
has a dense network of roads in the Northern Info Bits
Plains.
The world’s fastest passenger train is the Magleve.
We can find a dense network of roads in the It has surpassed the speed of the bullet trains of
United States of America and Europe. Russia has a Japan (256 km per hour) and the TGV of France
large network of roads in Europe, but not in Asia. (280 km per hour).
China has an extensive road network in eastern
and southern parts. Australia too has a large Railways also connect different countries of the
network of roads. world. The longest railway line in the world is the
Trans-Siberian which connects Moscow with
India has a large network of roads all over the
Vladivostok. The Trans-Caspian railways connect
country, but they are poor in terms of quality.
Central Asia with Moscow in Russia. The Trans-
Recently, India has completed the project of Andean railway line connects Buenos Aires with
Golden Reactangle in order to connect the four
Valpraiso through Argentina. The Canadian Pacific
metros of New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and
railways connect Haliax on the Atlantic coast with
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