Indian Railways At a Glance
Indian Railway is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is one of the world’s largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km and 7,112 stations.
- Railways were first introduced to India in the year 1853 from Mumbai to Thane
- Indian Railways Nationalised in 1951
- The country’s first railway, built by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway
- The Indian railway system is the largest in Asia and fourth in the world based on rail transport network size after USA, China and Russia
- It is the biggest employer in the world and the largest single undertaking in the country
- It has the second biggest electrified system in the world after Russia
- Indian Railways is divided into 16 zones.which are further sub-divided into 68 divisions
- Each zone is headed by a general manager
Railway Zones
| Name | Established | Headquarters | Divisions |
| Southern | 14 April 1951 | Chennai | Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, and Salem, Palakkad,Thiruvananthapuram |
| Central | 5 November 1951 | Mumbai | Mumbai,CST, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur and Nagpur |
| Western | 5 November 1951 | Mumbai | Mumbai,Central, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Vadodara |
| Eastern | 14 April 1952 | Kolkata | Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol and Malda Town |
| Northern | 14 April 1952 | Delhi | Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow and Moradabad |
| North Eastern | 14 April 1952 | Gorakhpur | Izzatnagar, Lucknow and Varanasi |
| South Eastern | 1955 | Kolkata | Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur and Ranchi |
| Northeast Frontier | 15 January 1958 | Maligaon | Alipurduar, Katihar, Rangia, Lumding and Tinsukia |
| South Central | 2 October 1966 | Secunderabad | Vijayawada, Secunderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Hyderabad and Nanded |
| East Central | 1 October 2002 | Hajipur | Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur and Sonpur |
| North Western | 1 October 2002 | Jaipur | Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner and Jodhpur |
| East Coast | 1 April 2003 | Bhubaneswar | Khurda Road, Sambalpur and Visakhapatnam |
| North Central | 1 April 2003 | Allahabad | Allahabad, Agra and Jhansi |
| South East Central | 1 April 2003 | Bilaspur | Bilaspur, Raipur and Nagpur |
| South Western | 1 April 2003 | Hubli | Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore and Gulbarga |
| West Central | 1 April 2003 | Jabalpur | Jabalpur, Bhopal and Kota |