Central Railway zone
zone of Indian Railways
The Central Railway (abbreviated CR) is one of the 18 zones of Indian Railways. Its headquarters are located at Mumbai. It has the distinction of operating the first passenger railway line in India, which opened from Mumbai to Thane on 16 April 1853 (1853-04-16).
History
The railway zone was formed on 5 November 1951 by grouping several government-owned railways, including the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, the Scindia State Railway of the former princely state of Gwalior, Nizam State Railway, Wardha Coal State Railway and the Dholpur State Railway.
The Central Railway zone formerly included large parts of Madhya Pradesh and part of southern Uttar Pradesh, which made it the largest railway zone in India in terms of area, track mileage and staff. These areas became the new West Central Railway zone in April 2003.
The Central Railway General Manager's official residence (erstwhile GIPR agent's residence), 'Glenogle'-a Grade II-B heritage bungalow, is located on Bhausaheb Hire Marg (Mount Pleasant Road), adjacent to the Maharashtra Chief minister's official residence 'Varsha' in Malabar Hill, Mumbai.
Routes
Main Lines in the Central Railway zone
Howrah–Nagpur–Mumbai line (upto Nagpur Jn.)
Mumbai–Chennai line (upto Wadi Jn.)
Howrah–Prayagraj–Mumbai line (upto Khandwa Jn.)
New Delhi–Chennai line (from Itarsi Jn. to Ballarshah)
Pune–Miraj–Londa line (upto Miraj Jn.)
Mumbai-Diva-Panvel-Roha line
One of the oldest and important railway project of central railway zone was Kalyan-Ahmednagar railway project, which was in planning stage since British regime. It was referred to as 3rd ghat project.
“Central Railway zone” enters the record as zone of Indian Railways. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Central, Railway and zone can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3345408. Authority coordinates are 18.975, 72.826. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1853, 1951 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Central Railway zone” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.