Brief introduction

Brief introduction

Indian Railways (IR) is largest system in world under single management& is life line of country.It plays very important part in socioeconomic development of country. It has one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting over 5 billion passengers and over 600 million tonnes of freight annually. IR is also the world's largest commercial or utility employer, having more than 1.6 million regular employees on its payroll.Annual expenditure & earning of Indian Railway is about 42000cr & 36000 cr as per budget of 2004-05

The railways traverse through the length and breadth of the country covering a total length of 63,140 km (39,200 miles). IR owns a total of 222147 wagons, 42570 coaches and 7,739 locomotives and runs a total of 14,444 trains daily, including about 8,702 passenger trains(2003-04)

The total length of track used by Indian Railways is about 108,706 km (67,547 miles). Track sections are rated for speeds ranging from 75 to 160 km/h (47 to 99 mph). Indian railways uses three gauges, the Broad gauge (wider than the standard gauge – 4 ft 8½ in (1,435 mm)); the metre gauge; and the Narrow gauge (narrower than the standard gauge).

Gauge Broad gauge – 1,676 mm (5.5 ft) – is the most widely used gauge in India with 86,526 km (53,765 miles) of track. In some regions with less traffic, the metre gauge – 1,000 mm (3.28 ft) – is common, although the Unigauge project is in progress to convert all track to broad gauge. Narrow Gauge is present on a few routes, lying in hilly terrains, which are usually difficult to convert to broad gauge. Narrow guage covers a total of 3,651 km (2,269 miles). The Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are two famous lines that use narrow gauge. This gauge is also used by zoos in India, whose tracks are sometimes maintained by the railways.

Railway Zone

Railway has sixteen zone in addition to calcutta metro. 2 of these zones are added in system in oct 2002 & 5 in apr 2003,Indian railways also has majority shares in konkan railway corporation . Delhi metro is owned by DMRC

Central Railway

The Central Railway is one of the 16 zones of Indian Railways, and is one of the largest. Its headquarters are in Mumbai at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus)& is a world heritage building . It also has the distinction of including the first passenger railway line in India, which opened from Bombay to Thane on April 16, 1853.

Some major cities that fall under the Central Railway zonal jurisdiction are:

Mumbai
Pune
Nagpur
Kolhapur
Solapur

The railway covers a large part of the state of Maharashtra, as well as parts of north-east Karnataka and southern Madhya Pradesh. It is organized into five divisions: Bhusawal division, Nagpur division, Mumbai CST division, Solapur division, and Pune division.

The Central Railway was formed on November 5, 1951 by grouping several government-owned railways, including the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and the Scindia State Railway of the former princely state of Gwalior.

The Central Railway zone formerly covered northern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states, and portions of southern Uttar Pradesh, which made it the largest railway zone in India in terms of area, track mileage or manpower. These areas became the new West Central Railway zone in April 2003.

Notable Trains

The Matheran Line
Constructed in 1907, The narrow gauge Matheran line connects Neral on the Mumbai-Pune main line with the hill station of Matheran in the Western Ghats, east of Mumbai. Neral is linked to Bombay's famous Victoria Terminus by frequent suburban electric trains. The steam engines have now been replaced by diesel locomotives but it is still a pleasurable journey. The route is noted for its sharp curves.

Deccan Queen - Pride of Central Railway, Connects Pune to Mumbai
Gitanjali Express - Mumbai to Kolkata

East Central Railway(oct 2002)

The East Central Railway is one of the new railway zones in India started functioning from 1.10.2002. It is headquarted at Hajipur and comprises Sonpur and Samastipur divisions of North Eastern Railway and Danapur, Mughalsarai, and Dhanbad divisions of Eastern Railway.

East Coast Railway (ECoR)(apr 2003)

East Coast Railway (ECoR) is one of the new railway zones of India. It covers much of the area of Orissa state and the north-eastern part of Andhra Pradesh. It is headquartered in Bhubaneswar and comprises Khurda Road, Waltair, and Sambalpur divisions of South Eastern Railway.

Konkan Railway

A monsoon morning in August 2004 at Tivim Station, Goa.
RoRo (roll on/roll off) service allows lorries to avoid the National Highway between Honavar and Mumbai.The Konkan Railway (Railway Symbol:KR) is subsidiary of the Indian Railways which operates along the Konkan coast of India.
It is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at CBD Belapur in Navi Mumbai. By May 1999 Konkan Railway had laid a 760km route from Roha to Mangalore along the western coast of India (the Konkan region). The route is a single-line track, and is not electrified yet. It has been designed for high-speed traffic (160 km/h).

It is open to goods and passenger traffic. KR does not have divisions like the other Indian Railway, however, it has two regions with headquarters at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and Karwar in Karnataka. The Ratnagiri region extends from Roha to Sawantwadi, while the
Karwar region extends from Pernem to Thokur (the latter being where Southern Railway begins, a few stations north of Mangalore).

Note: Although KR is currently single-line, KR and South Western Railway lines run parallel from Majorda to Madgaon, making that section a double-line.

North Central Railway (apr 2003)

The North Central Railway is one of the new railway zones in India. It is headquarted at Allahabad and comprises reorganized Allahabad division of Northern Railway, Jhansi division of Central Railway, and new Agra division.

North Eastern Railway

The North Eastern Railway is one of the sixteen railway zones in India. It is headquarted at Gorakhpur and comprises Lucknow and Varanasi divisions as well as reorganized Izzatnagar division.

North Western Railway(oct 2002)

The North Western Railway is one of the new zones in India. It is headquarted at Jaipur and comprises Jodhpur division and reorganized Bikaner division of Northern Railway, and reorganized Jaipur and Ajmer divisions of Western Railway.

Northeast Frontier Railway

The North Eastern Railway was created during the reorganisation of the Indian Railways system in 1952 by amalgamating the Assam Railway and Avadh-Tirhut Railway. To better serve the needs of the of the northeastern states, the Northeast Frontier Railway, NFR, was carved out of the North Eastern Railway in 1958. Head quartered in Maligaon, Guwahati, the capital of the state of Assam it is responsible for rail operations in the entire Northeast and parts of West Bengal and Bihar. It is divided into 5 divisions:

Tinsukia
Lumding
Rangiya
Alipurdaur
Katihar

The area of Northeast Frontier Railways operations is characterised by exceptional beauty and at the same time by some of the most arduous terrain. This difficult terrain limits the rail netwrok expansion and the only state with a decent rail network is Assam. The network is not borad guage in many parts and the rail lines are antiquated with speeds at some sections being limited to a maximum of 30 km/h.

Northern Railway

The Northern Railway is one of the sixteen railway zones in India. It is headquatered in Delhi and comprises of Ferozpur, Ambala, Lucknow and Moradabad divisions. It is one of nine older zones of Indian Railways and has the largest route kilometers of track (6807 kms) under its jurisdiction even after the reorganization of the railways into the new zonal structure. It was created on 14 April 1952 from the Jodhpur Railway, Bikaner Railway, three divisions of the East Indian Railway north-west of Mughalsarai, and the Eastern Punjab Railway. It covers the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. It also operates the largest Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) system in the world at Delhi.

South Central Railway

The South Central Railway is one of the 16 railway zones in India. It is headquarted at Secunderabad and has the following divisions: Reorganized Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal (including Bellary-Guntakal (MG) and Bellary-Rayadurg), Vijayawada, new Guntur and Nanded. It covers the state of Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Karnataka and Maharastra.

It was created on 2 October 1966 as the ninth zone of Indian Railways. It has 5752 route kilometers of track.

South East Central Railway (apr 2003)

The South East Central Railway is one of the new railway zones in India. It is headquarted at Bilaspur and comprises Nagpur division, reorganized Bilaspur division of South Eastern Railway and new Raipur division.

South Eastern Railway

The South Eastern Railway is one of the sixteen railway zones in the India. It is headquatered at Kolkata and comprises Kharagpur division, reorganized Adra and Chakradharpur divisions and new Ranchi division.

The South Western Railway

The South Western Railway is one of the 16 railway zones in India. It is headquarted at Hubli and comprises Bangalore and Mysore divisions of Southern Railway, reorganized Hubli division of South Central Railway including Hospet-Toranagal.

Southern Railway

Southern Railway is the first Railway Zone to be created in independant India. It was created on April 14, 1951 by merging three state railways namely Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway, and the Mysore state railway.

Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following divisions: Chennai, Madurai, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchirapalli. It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 500 million passengers travel on the network every year.

West Central Railway(apr 2003)

The West Central Railway is one of the new zones of Indian Railways, created in April 2003. It was also a private railway company of former British India, which was later nationalized.

The former West Central Railway (WCR) was founded in British India in 1924. It began transporting military goods for the British armed forces in 1928, when the railway from Bombay to Poona was finished. In the late 1930s, the "Indian Railway of Bombay" started passenger transportation, but as war began, these efforts were suspended. The private company was taken over by the Royal Army in 1940.

The "Railway of Bombay" did not restart its business until India became independent in 1947. On November 5, 1951, it was split into the Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway (CR). In the late 1960s three other railway lines were built, leaving Bombay in different directions, reaching Ahmadabad in the North, Nagpur in the East, and Hyderabad in the southeast.

The Western Railway is headquartered in Bombay Central and the Central Railway in Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus. The CR is the largest Indian rail network in terms of passenger load. Both the services run suburban rail servies in Bombay.

In April 2003, the West Central Railway was reconstituted from the Jabalpur and Bhopal divisions of CR and the reorganized Kota division of WR. It is headquartered at Jabalpur. The new West Central Railway serves northern Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states, southern Uttar Pradesh state, and northwestern Rajasthan state. It includes portions of the former Indian Midland Railway and the Gwalior state railways.

Western Railway

The Western Railway is one of the 16 zones of Indian Railways, and is among the busiest railroad networks in India. There are primary two railroad lines: Route A from New Delhi to Mumbai via Kota, Ratlam and Dahod and Route B from New Delhi) to vadadara via ahmadabad & Bhopal to Indore through the west indian statesof Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Major cities in Western Railway Route A include Mumbai Central, Valsad, Surat, Vadodara (Baroda), Godhra, Ratlam.

Route B includes Mumbai Central, Valsad, Surat, Vadodara, Nadiad, Ahmedabad, Palanpaur

History
The Western Railway was created on November 5, 1951 by the merger of several state-owned railways, including the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway (BB&CI), and the Saurashtra, Rajputana and Jaipur railways. The BB&CI Railway was itself inaugurated in 1855, starting with the construction of a 29 mile (47 km) broad gauge track from Ankleshwar to Utran in Gujarat state on the west coast. In 1864, the railway was extended to Mumbai.

Subsequently, the project was further extended beyond Baroda in a north easterly direction towards Godhra, Ratlam, Nagda and thereafter northwards towards Mathura, to eventually link with the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, now the Central Railway, which had already started operating in Mumbai in 1853. In 1883, a meter gauge railway system, initially linking Delhi with Agra, Jaipur and Ajmer, was established.

The first suburban service in Mumbai with steam traction was introduced in April 1867. It was extended to Churchgate in 1870. By 1900 45 trains in each direction were carrying over one million passengers annually.

The railways of several princely states were also integrated into the Western Railway. The Gaekwar Maharajas of Baroda built the Gaekwar's Baroda State Railway (GBSR), which was merged into the BB&CI in 1949. Several railways of western Gujarat, including the Bhavnagar, Kathiawar, Jamnagar & Dwarka, Gondal, and Morvi railways were merged into the Saurashtra Railway in 1948. The Jodhpur and Bikaner Railway was taken over by Rajasthan state in 1949, after the western portion was ceded to the government of Pakistan.

In 2002 the Jaipur and Ajmer divisions of the Western Railway became part of the newly-created North Western Railway, and in April 2003 the Kota division of the Western Railway became part of the newly-created West Central Railway.

Present
Western Railway serves entire Gujarat, a large part of Rajasthan, some portion of Madhya Pradesh and small parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The Western coast of India served by Western Railway has a number of ports, important among them being Kandla, Okha, Porbandar and Bhavnagar in Gujarat State.

The suburban section of western railway in Mumbai extends from Churchgate, the city's business and residential centre, to Virar covering a distance of 60 km and 28 stations. Recently the section has been added to Dahnu Road adding 10 more stations and 60 km. The first electric train on this section was introduced in 1928 between Churchgate and Borivali.

The gauge-wise kilometrage of Western Railways at present, is as under:

Gauge Length
Broad Gauge 4,305 km
Metre Gauge 4,838 km
Narrow Gauge 877 km
Total 10,020 km

It is the most electrified railroad system in the Indian Railways making it the most important railroad in India.

The Western Railway has its headquarters at Mumbai. It also runs the Western Line of the Mumbai suburban railway system.

The railway has six operating divisions: Bhavnagar, Mumbai, Ratlam, Rajkot, Vadodara, and Ahmedabad.

Mumbai Suburban Railway system

The Mumbai Suburban Railway system is life line of Mumbai.It carries more than 6.1 million commuters everyday. It has the highest passenger density in the world. More than half of the total daily passenger trips on Indian Railways are performed on Mumbai Suburban Railway system It is .operated by central & western Railway with a train at every 3 minutes during peak hour

Given the geographical spread of the population and location of business areas, the rail network will continue to be the principal mode of mass transport in Mumbai.

The Suburban Railway system in Mumbai is perhaps the most complex, densely loaded and intensively utilised system in the world. Spread over 302 route kilometres, it operates on 1500 V DC power supply( under conversion to AC) from overhead catenary lines. The suburban services are run by electric multiple units (EMUs). 184 rakes (train sets) of 9-car and 12-car composition are utilised to run 2067 train services to carry 6.1 million passengers per day.

Mumbai Suburban Railway system, in spite of heavy demands on it, has provided an efficient and reliable service. Overcrowding has grown to such an extent that 4,700 passengers are traveling per 9-car train during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of 1,700. This has resulted in what is known as super dense crush load of 14-16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space!

Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC)

To enable the Mumbai Suburban Railway to meet the demands of the ever-growing passenger traffic, Ministry of Railways and the Government of Maharashtra envisioned MRVC.

Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd (MRVC Ltd), a public sector unit of Govt. of India under Ministry of Railways (MOR) was incorporated under Companies Act, 1956 on July 12, 1999. with an equity capital of Rs 25 crores (Rs 250,000,000) shared in the ratio of 51:49 between Ministry of Railways and Government of Maharashtra to implement the rail component of an integrated rail-cum-road urban transport project called Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). The cost of the rail component of the project is to be shared equally by Ministry of Railways and Government of Maharashtra.

Zones and Corridors

Two zonal Railways, the Western Railway (WR) and the Central Railway (CR), operate the Mumbai Suburban Railway system. At present, the fast corridors on Central Railway as well as Western Railway are shared for long distance (main line) and freight trains.

Western Line
Two corridors (one local and other through) on Western Railway run northwards from Churchgate terminus parallel to the west coast up to Virar (60 km). These corridors are popularly referred to as 'Western Line' by the locals

Central Line
Two corridors (one local and other through) on Central Railway run from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Kalyan (54 km),from where it bifurcates into Kalyan–Kasara (67 km) in the north-east and Kalyan–Karjat–Khopoli(61 km) in south-east. These corridors are popularly referred to as 'Central Line' or 'Main Line' by the locals.

Harbour Line
The 5th corridor on Central Railway runs from CST to Raoli Junction (11 km) from where the line splits. One line goes north west to join WR at Mahim and goes up to Andheri (11 km), and the other goes eastward to terminate at Panvel (39 km) via Navi Mumbai. This corridor is popularly referred to as 'Harbour Line' by the locals.

List of stations

Western line
Within Greater Mumbai: Churchgate, Marine Lines, Charni Road, Grant Road, Mumbai Central, Mahalaxmi, Lower Parel, Elphinstone Road, Dadar, Matunga Road, Mahim, Bandra, Khar Road, Santacruz, Vile Parle, Andheri, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivali, Borivali, Dahisar.

Outside Greater Mumbai: Dahisar, Mira Road, Bhayandar, Naigaon, Vasai Road, Nallasopara, Virar, Vaitarna, Saphala, Kelve Road, Palghar, Umroli, Boisar, Vangaon, Dahanu Road

Central (Main) line
Within Greater Mumbai: Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Masjid, Sandhurst Road, Byculla, Chinchpokli, Currey Road, Parel, Dadar, Matunga , Sion, Kurla, Vidyavihar, Ghatkopar, Vikhroli, Kanjurmarg, Bhandup, Mulund, Thane

Outside Greater Mumbai: Thane, Kalva, Mumbra, Diwa, Dombivli, Thakurli, Kalyan

Kalyan, Vithalwadi, Ulhasnagar, Ambarnath, Badlapur, Vangani, Shelu, Neral, Bhivpuri Road, Karjat, Palasdhari, Kelavli, Dolavli, Lowjee, Khopoli
Kalyan, Shahad, Ambivli, Titwala, Khadavli, Vasind, Asangaon, Atgaon, Khardi, Kasara

Harbour line
Within Greater Mumbai: Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Masjid, Sandhurst Road, Dockyard Road, Reay Road, Cotton Green, Sewri, Vadala road

Vadala road, Kings Circle, Mahim, Bandra,Khar Road, Santacruz, Vile Parle, Andheri
Vadala road, Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar, Chunabhatti, Kurla,Tilak Nagar, Chembur, Govandi, Mankhurd
Outside Greater Mumbai: Vashi, Sanpada, Juinagar, Nerul, Seawoods, Belapur, Khargar, Mansarovar, Khandeshwar, Panvel

Diwa-Vasai Road Corridor
Diwa, Dombivli, Bhiwandi, Kharbao, Kaman, Vasai Road

Thane-Turbhe-Vashi Corridor
Thane, Dighe,Airoli, Rabale, Ghansoli, Kopar Khairane, Turbhe, sanpada, Vashi

New coaches

Under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project the city would be receiving newly designed coaches manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory, Perambur. The coaches are built of stainless steel, and have cushioned seats, bigger windows, better suspension and ventilation. 101 new trains have been procured under the project at a total cost of Rs 1,900 crore (19 billion).