About Indian Railways

Indian railways which comprise the chief mode of organized transportation system is the nation’s single largest undertaking with a route length of over 63 thousand kilometers spread over 6853 railway stations. Making a small beginning in April 1853 when the first ever railway train in India commenced its journey from Mumbai to thane, a stretch of only 34 kilometers, Indian railways emerged to be Asia’s largest and the world’s second largest railway system under a single management.

As on march 31, 2011 the Indian railway had a vast network of 7083 stations spread over a route length of 64024 kilometers.

As on march 31, 2011 about 23 percent of the route kilometer, 34 percent of running track kilometer and 34 percent of total track kilometer is electrified, this is the second biggest electrified system in the system, the first being commonwealth of Independent states.

The Indian railway system is now divided into 17 zones. Each zone is headed by a general manager, who is responsible for the railway board for all the zonal affairs such as operation and maintenance of zonal railways and the financial matters pertaining there to.

S.No	Zone	Date of creation	Headquarters
1	Southern	14.04.1951	Chennai
2	Western	05.11.1951	Mumbai (church gate)
3	Cebtrak	05.11.1951	Mumbai (Victoria terminus)
4	Northern	04.04.1952	New delhi
5	Eastern	01.08.1955	Kolkata
6	South Eastern	01.08.1955	Kolkata
7	North- Eastern	14.04.1955	Gorakhpur
8	South Central	02.10.1966	Secunderabad
9	North East Frontier	15.01.1958	Maligaon (Guwahati)
10	North- Central	06.07.2002	Allahabad
11	East- Central	06.07.2002	Hajipur
12	North- Western	10.10.1996	Jaipur
13	East- Coast	06.07.2002	Bhubaneswar
14	South- Western	01.11.1996	Hubli
15	West- Central	06.07.2002	Jabalpur
16	South- East central	06.07.2002	Bilaspur
17	Metro rail	2010	kolkata