Railway Zones

 Indian Railways is geographically organized into zones. At present there are 17 Zonal Railways (including Metro Railway, Kolkata).

  Zones Route
Km
Headquarters Divisions
1 Central (CR) 3905 Mumbai Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur
2 East Central            (ECR) 3628 Hajipur Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur
3 East Coast (ECoR) 2572 Bhubaneswar Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam
4 Eastern (ER) 2414 Kolkata Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda
5 North Central            (NCR) 3151 Allahabad Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi
6 North Eastern (NER) 3667 Gorakhpur Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi
7 North Western (NWR)            5459 Jaipur Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
8 Northeast Frontier  (NFR) 3907 Guwahati Alipurduar, Katihar, Rangia, Lumding, Tinsukia
9 Northern (NR) 6968 Delhi Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad
10 South Central (SCR) 5803 Secunderabad Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded, Vijayawada
11 South East Central  (SECR) 2447 Bilaspur Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur
12 South Eastern (SER) 2631 Kolkata Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
13 South Western  (SWR) 3177 Hubli Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
14 Southern (SR) 5098 Chennai Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, Palakkad, Salem, Trivandrum
15 West Central (WCR) 2965 Jabalpur Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
16 Western (WR) 6182 Mumbai Mumbai Central, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Vadodara
17 Kolkata Metro 24.5 Kolkata  

 

Each zone is under the control of General Manager (GM) who is responsible for its operation, maintenance and financial position. GM is assisted by an Additional General Manager (AGM) and Heads of Department (HoD) for various Departments viz, Transportation, Commercial, Accounts, Personnel, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Signal & Telecommunications, Stores, Medical and Security. In departments where more than one HoD is provided one of the HODs is nominated as co-ordinating HoD. For example in Transportation, there are many HOD like Chief Freight Traffic Manager(CFTM), Chief  Passenger Traffic Manager(CPTM) etc., but COM is nominated as co-ordinating HoD.

Divisions

Each zone is further classified into Divisions geographically. Divisions are the basic unit of operation. Division is headed by a Divisional Railway Manager who is in the rank of an HoD. At present there 68 Divisions in Indian Railways.

A Railway Division is the smallest administrative Unit of Railways. 

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