Geography : Railway Zones

Contents

• Railway Zones
• The history of Railway Zones
• Major Routes, etc.

Zones

Q. How many regions or "zones" does IR have?

[7/02] Indian Railways is divided for administrative convenience into several regional railways. Until recently there were 9 zones, and this structure had not changed much for four decades. Recently, 7 new zones have been created, giving a total of 16.

(For the administrative structure of Indian Railways, please see the miscellaneous section.)

The nine older railway zones are:

• Northern Railway (NR)
• North Eastern Railway (NER)
• Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR, sometimes NEFR)
• Western Railway (WR)
• Southern Railway (SR)
• South Central Railway (SCR)
• South Eastern Railway (SER)
• Eastern Railway (ER)
• Central Railway (CR)

The 7 new zones are:

• South Western Railway (SWR)
• North Western Railway (NWR)
• West Central Railway (WCR)
• North Central Railway (NCR)
• South East Central Railway (SECR)
• East Coast Railway (ECoR)
• East Central Railway (ECR)

For their headquarters and constitution in terms of divisions please see below.

Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai), although it still comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board. It has been proposed [12/04] to merge it with IR because of its financial situation with high debt. At present [5/99] it consists of a single 760km route from Roha to Mangalore along the western coast of India (the Konkan region). The route is a single-line track (*), and currently not electrified. It has been designed for high-speed traffic (160 km/h). It is now [5/99] open to goods and passenger traffic. KR does not have divisions like the other IR zones, but it has two regions with headquarters at Ratnagiri and Karwar. The Ratnagiri region extends from Roha to Sawantwadi, while the Karwar region extends from Pernem to Thokur (the latter being where SR territory begins, a few stations north of Mangalore).

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

The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by IR, but does not belong to any of the zones; it is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway.

Q. What are the headquarters and divisions of the railway zones?

Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. The 9 older zones were split into 59 divisions in all. With the creation of new zones the divisions have also been reorganized, and new divisions have been created in 2002 (some came into effect in April 2003), bringing the total number of divisions to 67.

The divisional organization of the zonal railways is as follows:

Zone	Headquarters	Divisions
New zones that started in April 2003
East Coast Railway	Bhubaneshwar	Khurda Road, Waltair, and Sambalpur divisions of SER
South Western Railway	Hubli	Bangalore and Mysore divisions of SR, reorganized Hubli division of SCR, including Hospet-Toranagal. (Earlier constituted to have Guntakal division of SCR as well.)
West Central Railway	Jabalpur	Jabalpur and Bhopal divisions of CR, reorganized Kota division of WR
North Central Railway	Allahabad	Reorganized divisions: Allahabad of NR, Jhansi of CR, and new Agra division
South East Central Railway	Bilaspur	Nagpur division and reorganized Bilaspur division of SER, new Raipur division
New zones that were created in 2002
North Western Railway	Jaipur	Jodhpur division and reorganized Bikaner division of NR, reorganized Jaipur and Ajmer divisions of WR
East Central Railway	Hajipur	Sonpur and Samastipur divisions of NER, Danapur, Mughalsarai, and Dhanbad divisions of ER. (Was earlier constituted to have Katihar division of NFR as well.)
Old zones as they are after April 2003
Western Railway	Mumbai	Bhavnagar and Mumbai divisions, reorganized Ratlam, Rajkot and Vadodara divisions, new Ahmedabad division
Central Railway	Mumbai	Bhusawal and Nagpur divisions, reorganized Mumbai CST and Solapur divisions, new Pune division (including Pune-Kolhapur)
Eastern Railway	Kolkata	Howrah, Malda, Sealdah, and Asansol divisions
Southern Railway	Chennai	Chennai, Palghat, Tiruchirapalli, Thiruvananthapuram, and Madurai divisions (a Salem division has been proposed [7/06])
Northern Railway	Delhi	Ferozpur, Ambala, Lucknow and Moradabad divisions, reorganized Delhi division
North Eastern Railway	Gorakhpur	Lucknow and Varanasi divisions, reorganized Izzatnagar division
South Central Railway	Secunderabad	Reorganized Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal (including Bellary-Guntakal (MG) and Bellary-Rayadurg), and Vijayawada divisions, new Guntur and Nanded divisions.
South Eastern Railway	Kolkata	Kharagpur division, reorganized Adra and Chakradharpur divisions, new Ranchi division
Northeast Frontier Railway	Guwahati	Katihar, Lumding, Tinsukia divisions, reorganized Alipurduar division, new Rangiya division

Some trivia

Both Mumbai and Kolkata have the headquarters of two zonal railways each (WR/CR, and ER/SER respectively). However, Howrah in Kolkata is the head-station for both ER and SER, whereas Mumbai has two separate head-stations (Mumbai CSTM, formerly known as Victoria Terminus for CR, and Mumbai Central for WR).

New Delhi is close to the CR/NR border which is at Tughlakabad. Nagpur is a city with two divisional headquarters (one for CR, one for SER), a rare distinction it shares with Lucknow, which has headquarters for two different divisions in NR and NER.(Of course, except for Mumbai and Kolkata which are the headquarters of two zonal railways each as noted).

Q. How big are the various zones?

[6/99] In terms of route kilometers the sizes of the 9 older railway zons are as follows. Not updated for the new zonal structure!!

(Figures are approximate; although from 1999, they were little changed until the creation of the new zones. "BG/MG" indicates the route is served by both BG and MG.)

Railway Zone	Total Kms.	BG Kms.	MG Kms.	NG Kms.
Northern	11040	8920	2020	100
Western	10295	4600, 150 BG/NG	4455	890
South Central	7217	5955	1215	47
South Eastern	7420	6135	1280	40?
Southern	7040	4630	2125, 155 BG/MG	130
Central	7265	6240	1025	—
North Eastern	5143	2300	2820	23
Eastern	4320	4185	135	—
North East Frontier	3820	1370	2230, 131 BG/MG	80, 8 MG/NG

The total route kilometerage of IR is around 63,000 km.

History of the Railway Zones

Q. What is the history behind the 7 new zones created?

In 1984, the Railway Reform Committee had proposed the creation of four new zones to cope with the growth of freight traffic across the country and to rationalize the traffic handling of IR. This proposal went nowhere. In the 1990s IR had been considering setting up more zones, ostensibly to improve administrative and operational efficiency. However, the final proposals which came out for new zones appear to have been motivated by politics as much as technical considerations of efficiency.

Six zones (East Coast Rly., East Central Rly., North Central Rly., North Western Rly., South Western Rly., and West Central Rly.) were proposed and approved in principle in July 1996 during the tenure of Ram Vilas Paswan as Railway Minister. Raipur was proposed as the headquarters of the East Coast Railway, but eventually Bhubaneshwar was settled upon.

The South West Railway was originally to have been based at Bangalore, but later [3/00] it was decided to make Hubli its headquarters (this involved a fair amount of agitation and political action in Hubli as well). The South East Central Rly. headquartered at Bilaspur was proposed in 1998 and approved in principle by the government in 1999.

Until mid-2002 not much had been done for these new zones yet beyond some contracts for office space and the appointment of some officers. In fact, in May 2000 the government had cancelled these staff appointments and there was talk of disbanding whatever little administrative structure had been put in place for these new zones. In March 2002, the South Western Zone was 'inagurated' with some publicity, although there was no office space for the zone at Hubli; some staff at Bangalore were assigned to the new zone with, apparently, little to do.

Nothing really definitive was done about these new zones until June 2002, when the Railway Ministry announced that official notifications had been issued for the creation of two new zones: East Central and North Western. Some operational and administrative work for these officially began in October 2002. In July 2002, five more zones were officially created: East Coast, North Central, South Western, West Central, and South East Central.

[4/03] These new zones have now come into effect and have begun functioning in earnest. The East Central and North Western zones have been reorganized somewhat again, as indicated below.

From late 2002, there have been reports of wagons and coaches being spotted with new zonal markings for several of the new zones. Train numbers still [5/03] follow the old scheme with the numeric identifiers for the 9 older zones.

Until April 2003, the older 9 zones were organized as shown here:

Zone	Headquarters	Divisions
Northern Railway	Delhi	Ambala, Delhi, Ferozpur, Moradabad, Lucknow, Allahabad, Bikaner, Jodhpur
Western Railway	Mumbai Central	Mumbai Central, Vadodara, Ratlam, Kota, Ajmer, Jaipur, Rajkot, Bhavnagar
Southern Railway	Chennai (Chennai Central)	Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Palghat, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mysore
South Central Railway	Secunderabad	Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Hubli, Guntakal
South Eastern Railway	Kolkata (Howrah)	Kharagpur, Chakradharpur, Bilaspur, Waltair, Adra, Khurda Road, Sambhalpur, Nagpur
Eastern Railway	Kolkata (Howrah)	Howrah, Sealdah, Danapur, Dhanbad, Malda, Asansol, Mughalsarai
Central Railway	Mumbai (Mumbai CST)	Mumbai, Bhusaval, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Jhansi, Solapur, Nagpur
North Eastern Railway	Gorakhpur	Sonepur, Samastipur, Lucknow, Izzatnagar, Varanasi
Northeast Frontier Railway	Maligaon (Guwahati)	Katihar, Tinsukia, Alipurduar, Lumding

[4/03] The eight new divisions are: Rangiya (Assam), Raipur (Chhatisgarh), Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Pune and Nanded (Maharashtra), Agra (Uttar Pradesh) and Guntur (Andhra Pradesh).

The new railway divisions have jurisdictions as indicated below. ('A->B' means that the route from 'A' to 'B' belongs to the division, but station 'B' itself does not come under the division's jurisdiction.) A few adjustments also have occurred recently in the older divisions, as shown in this table.

Division	Jurisdiction	Route km
Nanded	Manmad-Mudkhed-Adilabad, Khandwa-Purna, Adilabad-Pimpalkutti (ex Hyderabad)	937
Agra	Agra->Palwal (133km), Palwal->Tughlakabad (40km) (both ex Jhansi), Agra->Bayana (ex Kota), Agra->Tundla (ex Allahabad), Agra->Bandikui, Mathura->Alwar (ex Jaipur), Mathura-Achnera, Mathura-Vrindavan (ex Izzatnagar)	589(?)
Guntur	Krishna Canal - Guntur, Guntur-Tenali, Guntur-Macherla, Guntur-Donakonda, Miryalaguda-Nadikude (ex Vijayawada), Donakonda-Nandyal (137km) (ex Guntakal), Pagidipalli-Miryalaguda (ex Secunderabad)	588
Raipur	Bilaspur-Durg, Durg-Dallirajhara, Railpur-Dhamtari, Abhanpur-Rajim, Urkura-Raipur BH-Raipur Jn.-Sarona (ex Bilaspur), Dallirajhara-Jagdalpur (new)	580
Ranchi	Chandil-Muri, Kita-Gangaghat, Muri-Kita, Gangaghat-Ranchi, Ranchi-Hatia, Muri->Barkakhana, Muri->Kotshila, Ranchi-Lohardaga (ex Adra), Hatia-Purnapani->Bondamunda (ex Chakradharpur)	483
Pune	Pune->Lonavala (ex Mumbai/CR), Pune-Miraj-Kolhapur (ex Hubli), Pune-Baramati (excluding Daund) (ex Solapur)	510
Rangiya	Rangiya-Murkongselek, New Bongaigaon - Rangiya - Kamakya, Baliapara-Bhalukpong, Rangapara-Tezpore, New Bongaigaon - Jogighopaj - Kamakhya (ex Alipurduar)	825
Ahmedabad	Vatva-Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad-Viramgam, Viramgam - Maliya Miyana, Ahmedabad-Khodiyar, Jhund-Khargoda, Maliya Miyana - Samakhiali, Chandlodiya-Khodiyar-Gandhinagar (ex Vadodara), Mahesana-Palanpur, Viramgam-Mahesana, Khodiyar-Mahesana, Ahmedabad-Himmatnagar-Khedbrahma, Kalol-Ambliyasan, Mahesana-Tarangahill, Kalol-Katosan-Ranuj, Mahesana-Patan, Sabarmati-Asarva bypass chord (ex Rajkot), Palanpur-Samakhiali, Samakhiali-Gandhidham, Gandhidham-Bhuj, Gandhidham - Kandla Port, Bhuj-Naliya (ex Ajmer)	1410
Other adjustments among the older divisions.
Jhansi	Manikpur-Naini (91km, ex Jabalpur Division)	1461
Hubli	Hospet-Bellary (65km), Toranagallu-Ranjitpura (23km), Guntakal-Bellary MG (49km) (all of these are ex Guntakal division)	1076

Other divisional adjustments that are slated to happen in 2003:

• Palwal-Tughlakabad moves from Jhansi to Delhi (?)
• Nandyal-Guntakal moves from Guntakal to Hyderabad
• Hospet->Toranagallu moves from Guntakal to Hubli
• Guntakal-Bellary (MG) and Bellary-Rayadurg move from Hubli to Guntakal (in the case of Guntakal - Bellary MG, this is a return to its original home division!)
• Bhiwani-Rohtak moves from Delhi to Bikaner
• Adarsh Nagar - Chittorgarh moves from Ratlam to Ajmer

Looking ahead, it is expected that the Palghat division of SR will be split in two, with a smaller Palghat division and a new Erode or Salem division. The new Palghat division is expected to have the section from Mangalore Outer to Coimbatore and the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, whereas Mangalore itself will be transferred to SWR when the Hassan-Mangalore line. A new division from Coimbatore Outer to Jolarpettai is expected to be created.

Q. How were the 9 older zones created out of the former independent railway networks?

Around 1950, legislation was passed allowing the central government to take over many of the independent railway systems that were in operation.

In 1951, the following zones were created:

• SR — April 14: From Madras & Southern Mahratta Rly., South Indian Rly., and Mysore State Rly. (about 9660 km).
• CR — Nov. 5: From the GIPR, the Nizam's State Rly., and the Scindia and Dholpur Rly. (about 8690 km).
• WR — Nov. 5: From the BB&CI Rly., the Saurashtra, the Rajasthan, the Jaipur, and the Cutch Rlys. (about 9120 km).

In 1952, the following zones were created:

• NR — April 14: From the Jodhpur Rly., Bikaner Rly., three divisions of the East Indian Rly. north-west of Mughalsarai, and the Eastern Punjab Rly. (about 9670 km).
• ER — April 14: From the rest of the East Indian Rly. (east of Mughalsarai) and the Bengal Nagpur Rly. (about 9120 km).
• NER — April 14: From the Oudh-Tirhut Rly., the Assam Rly., and the Kanpur-Achnera section of the BB&CI Rly. (about 7660 km).

In 1955, the South-Eastern Railway is carved out of ER:

• SER — August 1: ER retains three divisions of the old East Indian Rly. and the Sealdah division of the old Bengal-Assam Rly. (about 3740km); the rest becomes SER (about 5380km).

In 1958, the Northeast Frontier Railway was carved out of NER:

• NFR — Jan. 15: the former Assam Rly. lines in the Pandu region are split off from NER to become the NFR (about 3730km).

In 1966, South-Central Rly. was carved out of SR:

• SCR — Oct. 2: The former Nizam's State Rly. network (by then the Secunderabad and Solapur divisions of SR) and part of the former Madras & Southern Mahratta Rly. (by then the Vijayawada and Hubli divisions) are split off from SR to become the South-Central Rly. (about 6070km).

Adjustments: Later in 1977, Guntakal division from SR was merged into SCR, and the Solapur division transferred back to CR. There have been other minor adjustments; e.g., in 1988 Ruthiyai-Bina was transferred from WR to CR. Akola-Purna was transferred from CR to SCR in the late 1970s. Malda was moved from NFR and made part of ER in the early 1980s. In 1979, the Shoranur-Cochin section was transferred from the Palghat division (originally Olavakkot -- included Cochin - Shoranur and Jolarpettai - Shoranur) to the newly formed Trivandrum division. Minor adjustments including transfers of portions of various routes from one division to another within a zone are quite common.

Major Routes

Major connecting routes

This section has been removed. Instead, please see the IR network maps for route information.

The golden quadrilateral consists of the routes connecting the four big metropolises (New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata) in a quadrilateral along with its diagonals. These are the most important routes in terms of passenger and freight volume. They constitute about 16% of the total network in terms of route length, but carry over 50% of the total freight and 47% of the total passenger traffic.