Divisions of Indian Railways

The Indian Railways is divided into zones, which are further sub-divided into divisions, each having a divisional headquarters. There are a total of sixty-nine divisions.^[1]

Each of the divisions, is headed by a Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) who reports to the General Manager (GM) of the zone. A DRM can be appointed from any services of Indian Railway, Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Revenue Service (IRS) for the tenure of 3 years but it can be exceeded on the recommendation of Railway Board. Divisional officers heading all departments viz. engineering, mechanical, electrical, signal and telecommunication, accounts, personnel, operating, commercial, safety, medical, security branches report to the Divisional Railway Manager. The DRM is assisted by one or two Additional Divisional Railway Managers (ADRM) in the working of the division.

List of Divisions of Indian Railways

Divisional Headquarter, Howrah Division, Eastern Railway zone

Divisional Headquarter, Tiruchirappalli Division, Southern Railway zone

The 68 divisions are listed below:^[2]


Sl. No	Name of the Railway zone	Abbr.	Route length (in Km)	Headquarters	Divisions
1.	Central Railway	CR	3905	Mumbai	Mumbai,^[3] Bhusawal,^[4] Pune,^[5] Solapur,^[6] Nagpur^[7]
2.	East Central Railway	ECR	3628	Hajipur	Danapur,^[8] Dhanbad, Mughalsarai, Samastipur,^[9] Sonpur
3.	East Coast Railway	ECoR	2572	Bhubaneswar	Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Waltair^[10]
4.	Eastern Railway	ER	2414	Kolkata	Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol, Malda
5.	North Central Railway	NCR	3151	Allahabad	Allahabad,^[11] Agra, Jhansi
6.	North Eastern Railway	NER	3667	Gorakhpur	Izzatnagar, Lucknow, Varanasi
7.	North Western Railway	NWR	5459	Jaipur	Jaipur,^[12] Ajmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur
8.	Northeast Frontier Railway	NFR	3907	Guwahati	Alipurduar, Katihar, Rangia, Lumding, Tinsukia
9.	Northern Railway	NR	6968	Delhi	Delhi,^[13] Ambala,^[14] Firozpur,^[15] Lucknow,^[16] Moradabad^[17]
10.	South Central Railway	SCR	5803	Secunderabad	Secunderabad,^[18] Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Guntakal, Guntur, Nanded
11.	South East Central Railway	SECR	2447	Bilaspur	Bilaspur, Raipur, Nagpur
12.	South Eastern Railway	SER	2631	Kolkata	Adra, Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi
13.	South Western Railway	SWR	3177	Hubli	Hubli, Bangalore, Mysore
14.	Southern Railway	SR	5098	Chennai	Chennai,^[19] Tiruchirappalli,^[20] Madurai,^[21] Palakkad,^[22] Salem,^[23] Thiruvananthapuram^[24]
15.	West Central Railway	WCR	2965	Jabalpur	Jabalpur, Bhopal, Kota
16.	Western Railway	WR	6182	Mumbai	Mumbai Central, Ratlam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Vadodara
17.	Kokan Railway	KR	26	Roha

Organisation

A typical division has an average track length of about 1000 km and staff strength of about 15000. All the departments and services of the Indian Railways are represented in a Division.^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]


Sl. No	Name of Department	Headed by	Abbre.	Role and function
1.	Engineering Department	Senior Divisional Engineer	Sr.DEN	Maintenance of all fixed assets of the Division, i.e. Track, Bridges, Buildings, Roads, Water supply etc.
2.	Mechanical Engineering & Power (Transportation) Department	Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer	Sr.DME	Maintenance of all rolling stock of the@ Division (except electric locos and EMU/MEMUs), i.e. locomotives, passenger and freight cars; and technical super etc.
3.	Electrical Engineering Department	Senior Divisional Electrical Engineer	Sr.DEE	Maintenance of all electric locomotives, EMUs/MEMUs and fixed electrical assets of the Division, i.e. Overhead equipment, lighting and power for railway establishments etc.
4.	Signal & Telecommunication Engineering Department	Senior Divisional Signal & Telecommunication Engineer	Sr.DSTE	Management of the Signalling and Telecommunication (S&T) infrastructure of the division for Safe Train operations;
5.	Operating and Traffic (Transportation) Department	Senior Divisional Operations Manager	Sr.DOM	Train operations
6.	Commercial Department	Senior Divisional Commercial Manager	Sr.DCM	Passenger ticketing, ticket checking, booking of freight rakes and collecting fares
7.	Medical Department	Chief Medical Superintendent	CMS	Providing medical facilities to railway employees and their families
8.	Safety Department	Senior Divisional Safety Officer	Sr.DSO	Ensuring safety of train operations
9.	Stores Department	Senior Divisional Controller of Stores	Sr. DCOS	Ensuring material for maintenance of trains (material for all departments except the Engineering Department)
10.	Accounts Department	Senior Divisional Accounts Officer	Sr. DAO	Financial management of the division
11.	Personnel Department	Senior Divisional Personnel Officer	Sr. DPO	HR functions
12.	Security Department	Senior Divisional Security Commissioner	Sr. DSC	Security of railway material, passenger and passenger belongings

Control Room

Every division has a Control Room for train operations, from where all the trains in the division are controlled and monitored.

Accident Relief Trains

Every division has Accident Relief Trains (ARTs), Accident Relief Medical Vans (ARMVs) and Breakdown Cranes for assisting in disaster management. These are under the supervision of the SrDME of the Division, who is also the head of Disaster Management of the Division.

Locomotive Sheds

The Diesel Locomotive Sheds and Electric Locomotive Sheds on the division maintain diesel and electric locomotives respectively. Their administrative control is with the DRM.

Coaching Depots and Sick Lines

Every division has some coaching depots to maintain its passenger cars and sick lines to maintain freight cars which are found unfit at the freight examination points.