Central Indian Railway

The Central Railway (CR) is perhaps the oldest railway zone of Indian Railways. This is one amongst the largest of the sixteen zones bifurcated by Indian Railways. Central Railway also boasts of the first passenger railway line in India that connected Bombay with Thane. Central Railway has its headquarters at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (before Victoria Terminus) in Mumbai. Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Solapur and Bhusawal are some of the major cities that fall under the Central Railway zone.

CR covers the major part of Maharashtra, north-east part of Karnataka and southern part of Madhya Pradesh. The Central Railway zone is further structured into five divisions namely Mumbai CST, Bhusawal, Nagpur, Solapur and Pune. On Nov' 5 1951, Central Railway was established by consolidating numerous government owned railways, together with the Great Indian Peninsula Railway and the Scindia State Railway. Earlier, Central Railway Zone also featured northern Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and southern part of Uttar Pradesh.

Owing to its wide area coverage, CR was the largest railway zone having maximum track mileage and staff. However, these areas were allocated to the West Central Railway zone in April 2003 for better administration. Central Railway Zone is also notable for its Matheran Line, which connects Neral with the hill station of Matheran in the Western Ghats, on the Mumbai-Pune main line. Deccan Queen, Gitanjali Express, Punjab Mail, Hussain Sagar Express and Pushpak Express are some of the distinguished trains that run under the management of the Central Railway.