Railway Zones

Indian Railway Zones:

†Konkan Railway (KR) is constituted as a separately incorporated railway, with its headquarters at Belapur CBD (Navi Mumbai). It comes under the control of the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board.

The Calcutta Metro is owned and operated by Indian Railways, but is not a part of any of the zones. It is administratively considered to have the status of a zonal railway. Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-seven divisions.

[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.
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.