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Although quantitative data relating to the history of Indian railways are plentiful, they are not easy to use. Each scholar is forced to construct his own time series or to accept data that suffer from many defects. Coverage is often unclear, definitions are imprecise, and data are often inconsistent. For example, data which purport to refer to India (currently India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) often unwittingly include Burma.
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Morris et al. (1975) studied this question.
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