22°34′21.8″N88°21′50.2″E / 22.572722°N 88.363944°E /22.572722; 88.363944
 | |
 4-Eastern Railway | |
 Howrah Junction | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Fairley Place,Kolkata |
| Locale | West Bengal andJharkhand, and some parts ofBihar |
| Dates of operation | 14 April 1952; 73 years ago (1952-04-14)– |
| Predecessor | East Indian Railway |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | Broad gauge (BG) & narrow gauge (NG) |
| Electrification | 2,222.620 kilometres (1,381.072 mi) |
| Length | 2,818.484 kilometres (1,751.325 mi) |
| Other | |
| Website | Eastern Railway |
TheEastern Railway (abbreviatedER) is among the 19zones of theIndian Railways. Its headquarters is at Fairley Place (Kolkata) and comprises four divisions:Howrah,Malda,Sealdah, andAsansol.[1] Each division is headed by a Divisional Railway Manager (DRM). The name of the division denotes the name of the city where the divisional headquarters is located. Eastern Railway oversees the largest and second largest rail complexes in the country,Howrah Junction andSealdah railway station, and also contains the highest number of A1 and A Category Stations likeHowrah,Malda Town,Sealdah,Asansol,Kolkata,Durgapur,Barddhaman,Jasidih,Madhupur,Rampurhat Junction,Bhagalpur,Jamalpur,Bandel andNaihati. Eastern Railways operates India's oldest train,Kalka Mail.
TheEast Indian Railway (EIR) Company was incorporated in 1845 to connect eastern India withDelhi. The first train ran here betweenHowrah andHooghly on 15 August 1854. The train left Howrah station at 8:30 a.m. and reached Hooghly in 91 minutes. The management of the East Indian Railway was taken over by the British Indian government on 1 January 1925.[2]
The Eastern Railway was formed on 14 April 1952 by amalgamating three lower divisions of the East Indian Railway: Howrah, Asansol and Danapur, the entireBengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) and the Sealdah division of the erstwhileBengal Assam Railway[3] (which was already added to the East Indian Railway on 15 August 1947). On 1 August 1955, the portions of BNR stretching from Howrah toVisakhapatnam in the South which is now the Headquarters ofSouth Coast Railway zone, Howrah to Nagpur in the Central area and up to Katni in the North Central Region were separated from Eastern Railway and became theSouth Eastern Railway.[4][5] Three more divisions:Dhanbad,Mughalsarai and Malda were formed later.[6] Till 30 September 2002 ER consisted seven divisions.
On 1 October 2002 a new zone, theEast Central Railway, headquarters atHajipur, was carved out by separating the Eastern Railway'sDanapur,Dhanbad andMughalsarai divisions from it.[5] Presently, it comprises four divisions and they are Malda Town, Howrah,Sealdah andAsansol.
In 2021, Eastern Railway completed fullelectrification of its 2010km rail network inWest Bengal,[7] while in 2022, its entire network of 2848 km was electrified with the conversion of theHansdiha-Godda section.[8][9]
Grand Chord andHowrah–Allahabad–Mumbai line
