| Eastern Railway | |
|---|---|
4-Eastern Railway |
|
| Locale | West Bengal and Bihar |
| Dates of operation | 1952– |
| Predecessor | East Indian Railway |
| Track gauge | Mixed |
| Length | 2414 |
| Headquarters | Fairley Place, Kolkata |
| Website | ER official website |
The Eastern Railway (ER) is one of the 17 zones of the Indian Railways. Its headquarters is at Fairley Place, Kolkata, and comprises four divisions: Howrah, Malda, Sealdah, and Asansol. These are the financial departments and each has an assistant divisional financial manager (ADFM), divisional railway manager (DRM), and senior divisional railway manager (Sr.DFM). The name of the division denotes the name of the city where the divisional headquarters is located.
It has three major workshops: Jamalpur, Liluah, and Kanchrapara. The Jamalpur Workshop is for wagon repair, periodic overhaul (POH) of diesel locomotives, manufacturing of cranes and tower-wagons; the Liluah workshop is for POH of coaching & freight vehicles and the Kanchrapara workshop is for POH of electric locomotives, EMU Locals and coaches.
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The East Indian Railway (EIR) Company was incorporated in 1845 to connect East India with Delhi. The first train ran here between Howrah and Hooghly on 15 August 1854. The train left Howrah Station at 08:30 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.[1]
The Eastern Railway was formed on 14 April 1952 by amalgamating three lower divisions of the East Indian Railway: Howrah, Asansol and Danapur, the entire Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR) and the Sealdah division of the erstwhile Bengal Assam Railway[2] (which was already added to the East Indian Railway on 15 August 1947). On 1 August 1955, the portions of BNR stretching from Howrah to Visakhapatnam in the South, Howrah to Nagpur in the Central area and up to Katni in the North Central Region were separated from Eastern Railway and became the South Eastern Railway.[3][4] Three more divisions: Dhanbad, Mughalsarai and Malda were formed later.[5] Till 30 September 2002 ER consisted seven divisions. On 1 October 2002 a new zone, the East Central Railway was carved out by separating the Eastern Railway's Danapur, Dhanbad and Mughalsarai divisions from it.[4]. Presently, it comprises four divisions.
Howrah Haridwar Kumbh express