Railway zones

Indian Railways is divided into several zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions. The number of zones in Indian Railways increased from six to eight in 1951, nine in 1952 to sixteen in 2003 then to seventeen in 2010. Each zonal railway is made up of a certain number of divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-eight divisions.
Each of the seventeen zones is headed by a General Manager (GM) who reports directly to the Railway Board. The zones are further divided into divisions under the control of Divisional Railway Managers (DRM). The divisional officers of engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial and safety branches report to the respective Divisional Manager and are in charge of operation and maintenance of assets. Further down the hierarchy tree are the Station Masters who control individual stations and the train movement through the track territory under their stations' administration.

Sl. No	Name	Abbr.	Date Established	Route KMs	Headquarters	Divisions
1.	Central	CR	1951-11-05	3905	Mumbai	Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur
2.	East Central	ECR	2002-10-01	3628	Hajipur	Danapur, Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur, Sonpur
3.	East Coast	ECoR	2003-04-01	2572	Bhubaneswar	Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Visakhapatnam
4.	Eastern	ER	1952-04	2414	Kolkata	Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda
5.	North Central	NCR	2003-04-01	3151	Allahabad	Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi
6.	North Eastern	NER	1952	3667	Gorakhpur	Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi
7.	North Western	NWR	2002-10-01	5459	Jaipur	Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
8.	Northeast Frontier	NFR	1958-01-15	3907	Guwahati	Alipurduar, Katihar, Rangia, Lumding, Tinsukia
9.	Northern	NR	1952-04-14	6968	Delhi	Delhi, Ambala, Firozpur, Lucknow, Moradabad
10.	South Central	SCR	1966-10-02	5803	Secunderabad	Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded, Vijayawada
11.	South East Central	SECR	2003-04-01	2447	Bilaspur	Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur
12.	South Eastern	SER	1955	2631	Kolkata	Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
13.	South Western	SWR	2003-04-01	3177	Hubli	Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
14.	Southern	SR	1951-04-14	5098	Chennai	Chennai, Trichy, Madurai, Palakkad, Salem, Thiruvananthapuram
15.	West Central	WCR	2003-04-01	2965	Jabalpur	Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
16.	Western	WR	1951-11-05	6182	Mumbai	Mumbai Central, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Vadodara
17.	Kolkata Metro	KNR	2010	--	Kolkata	Kolkata