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The Indian railways traverse through the length and width of
the country; the routes
cover a total length of 63,140 km (39,462 miles). It is one of the
largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just over
six billion passengers and almost 750 million tonnes of freight
annually. Indian Railway is the world's largest commercial or utility
employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. The entire railway
reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.
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Railway zones
For administrative purposes, Indian Railways is divided into sixteen
zones.
No .Name
Abbr. Headquarters
1. Northern Railway
NR
Delhi
2. North Eastern Railway NER Gorakhpur
3. Northeast Frontier Railway NFR Maligaon(Guwahati)
4 .Eastern Railway
ER Kolkata
5. South Eastern Railway
SER Kolkata
6. South Central Railway SCR Secunderabad
7. Southern Railway
SR Chennai
8. Central Railway CR Mumbai
9. Western Railway WR Mumbai
10. South Western Railway SWR Hubli
11. North Western Railway NWR Jaipur
12. West Central Railwa WCR Jabalpur
13. North Central Railway NCR Allahabad
14. South East Central Railway SECR Bilaspur, CG
15. East Coast Railway ECoR Bhubaneswar
16. East Central Railway ECR Hajipur
17. Konkan Railway †KR Navi
Mumbai
(†Konkan Railway
(KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its
headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai). |
Divisions in each
railway zones
Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each
having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven
divisions.
Zonal
RailwayDivisions
Northern Railway
Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad
North Eastern Railway
Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi
Northeast Frontier Railway Alipurduar, Katihar,
Lumding, Rangia, Tinsukia
Eastern Railway
Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda
South Eastern Railway
Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
South Central Railway
Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded, Vijayawada
Southern Railway
Chennai, Madurai, Palghat, Tiruchchirapalli, Trivandrum, Salem
Central Railway
Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur
Western Railway
Mumbai Central, Baroda, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar
South Western Railway
Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
North Western Railway
Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
West Central Railway
Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
North Central Railway
Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi
South East Central Railway Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur
East Coast Railway
Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam
East Central Railway
Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur
Notable trains
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is a World Heritage Site. The Darjeeling
Himalayan Railway, a narrow
gauge train with a steam locomotive is classified as a World Heritage
Site by UNESCO. The route started at New Jalpaiguri in the plains in
West Bengal and traverses tea gardens en route to Darjeeling, a hill
station at an elevation of 2,134 metres (7,000 ft).
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, in the Nilgiri Hills in southern
India, is also classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is also
the only rack railway in India.
The Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) railway
station in Mumbai is another World Heritage Site operated by Indian
Railways.
The Palace on Wheels is a specially designed train, lugged by a steam
engine, for promoting tourism
in Rajasthan.
The Samjhauta Express train ran between India and Pakistan.
It was closed due to hostilities between the two nations in 2001 but was
reopened when the hostilities subsided in 2004.
The Lifeline Express is a special train popularly known as the
"Hospital-on-Wheels" which provides healthcare to the rural areas.
The Himsagar Express, between Kanyakumari and Jammu Tawi, has the longest
run in terms of distance and time on Indian Railways network. It covers
3,745 km (2,327 miles) in about 74 hours and 55 minutes. |
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