Railways: network, gauges, zones and distribution

Detail

1. Indian Railways: the network

• Indian Railways is the national rail system. It moves both goods (freight) and people. It is one of the largest rail networks in the world. It is also India's largest government undertaking (a business run by the government).
• First line: Bombay (Mumbai) to Thane, 34 km, opened in 1853.
• Gandhi's view: the railways brought people of different cultures and languages together. This helped the national movement.
• Route length (route kilometre, rkm: the length of the line on the ground, however many tracks run side by side):
• 67,956 km (NCERT, 2019-20).

• The broad gauge route alone was 70,142 rkm in 2024-25 [4].

• Why railways matter:

• They carry bulk goods such as coal, iron ore, cement and foodgrains cheaply over long distances.
• They carry crowds of passengers across the country.
• They link farms, mines, ports and cities. So they help both industry and farming.

2. Railway zones

• A railway zone is a large administrative unit of Indian Railways. A General Manager runs it from a headquarters (HQ). Each zone is split into smaller divisions.
• NCERT lists 17 zones. Some of them, with their headquarters:

Zone	Headquarters	State
Central	Mumbai CST	Maharashtra
Northern	New Delhi	Delhi
East Central	Hajipur	Bihar
East Coast	Bhubaneswar	Odisha
North Central	Prayagraj	Uttar Pradesh
North Eastern	Gorakhpur	Uttar Pradesh
North East Frontier (NF)	Maligaon (Guwahati)	Assam
North Western	Jaipur	Rajasthan
South Central	Secunderabad	Telangana
South East Central	Bilaspur	Chhattisgarh
South Western	Hubballi	Karnataka
West Central	Jabalpur	Madhya Pradesh
Metro	Kolkata	West Bengal

• South Coast Railway (SCoR), the new zone:
• Announced in February 2019, with its HQ at Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). The Union Cabinet approved it the same month [7].
• It is made of the existing Guntakal, Guntur and Vijayawada divisions, plus a new Visakhapatnam division [8][9].
• 7 February 2025: the Cabinet approved splitting up the old Waltair division. About 410 km, including the Palasa–Visakhapatnam–Duvvada route, stays in SCoR as the Visakhapatnam division. The name "Waltair" was dropped because it is a colonial name [8].

• A gazette notification made the zone effective from 1 June 2026 [9]. This takes the count of zones beyond NCERT's 17.

• Exam traps:

• Kolkata Metro is a full zone of Indian Railways. Other city metros are not. They are run by separate companies.
• Maligaon is the HQ of the NF zone. Guwahati is not.
• Hajipur is in Bihar. It is not Patna.

3. Railway gauges

• Gauge is the distance between the two rails of a track. A wider gauge carries heavier loads at higher speeds, but it costs more to build.

Gauge	Width	Length (NCERT, 2019-20)	Where
Broad gauge (BG)	1.676 m	63,950 km	Main trunk lines across the plains and peninsula
Metre gauge (MG)	1.000 m	2,402 km	Old branch lines that have not yet been converted
Narrow gauge (NG)	0.762 m or 0.610 m	1,604 km	Mostly hills: Darjeeling, Kalka–Shimla, Nilgiri, Matheran

• Official categories also include standard gauge (1.435 m). It is used mainly by metro systems [4].
• Update: by 2024-25, broad gauge had grown to 70,142 rkm [4] (NCERT: 63,950 km in 2019-20). Most of this growth came from new lines and from gauge conversion.
• Project Unigauge is a programme to convert metre and narrow gauge lines into broad gauge. Why it is needed:
• When gauges change, goods must be unloaded and loaded onto another train. This causes delay, damage and cost.
• One single gauge lets trains run straight through.

• The result is faster, cheaper and better-linked freight and passenger traffic.

• Heritage hill lines are kept as narrow gauge. Examples are the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (West Bengal), Nilgiri Mountain Railway (Tamil Nadu), Kalka–Shimla Railway (Haryana–Himachal Pradesh) and Matheran (Maharashtra). They are valued for tourism and history.

4. Railway electrification

• Railway electrification means running trains on electricity drawn from overhead wires (overhead equipment, OHE). Engines no longer burn coal or diesel.
• How engines changed: steam engines (coal) were replaced by diesel engines and then by electric engines.
• Progress:
• 99.2% of the broad gauge network was electrified by late 2025. This is far ahead of the UK (39%), Russia (52%) and China (82%) [2].
• Between 2019 and 2025, more than 33,000 rkm was electrified. That is over 15 rkm every day on average [5].
• 14 zones and 25 states/UTs reached 100% electrification. Only 5 states still had work left: 574 rkm, or 0.8% of broad gauge [3].

• By March 2026, 69,873 rkm was electrified, up from 21,801 rkm in 2014. This is 99.6% of broad gauge [4].

• Why it matters:

• Electric traction uses less imported oil.
• Diesel use fell by 178 crore litres in 2024-25, a 62% cut since 2016-17 [6].

• Lower emissions support Indian Railways' target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 [5]. Net-zero means its emissions are balanced by what it removes or offsets.

• Electrification has reached hard ghat sections too. An example is Sakleshpur–Subramanya Road in the Western Ghats, Karnataka [5].

5. Distribution of the rail network (Class 10 view)

Three groups of factors shape the rail map:

• Physiographic factors (the shape of the land: relief, rivers, soil)
• Economic factors (people, farms, industry, resources)
• Administrative factors (government plans and connecting regions)

a) Dense network: the Northern Plains (Punjab to West Bengal, the Indo-Gangetic plain)

• Level land makes lines cheap and quick to build.
• High population density means plenty of passengers.
• Rich agriculture produces a lot of grain and other goods to carry.
• The one difficulty: wide rivers such as the Ganga, Yamuna, Ghaghara, Kosi and Brahmaputra need long, costly bridges.

b) Sparse network: difficult or thinly peopled regions

Region	Why there are few lines
Himalaya (J&K, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal)	High relief, steep slopes, landslides, sparse population, little economic activity
Western Rajasthan (Thar Desert)	Sandy plains, shifting sand dunes, sparse population
Gujarat (Rann of Kachchh)	Swampy, salty marshland
Forests of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand	Dense forests, rugged plateau, tribal areas with few people

• Sahyadri (Western Ghats): this steep wall of hills along the west coast can be crossed only through gaps or passes (ghats):
• Thal Ghat links Mumbai to Nashik.

• Bhor Ghat links Mumbai to Pune.

• Peninsular plateau: the land is fairly flat, so the network is moderate. It is thicker around mining and industrial belts.

c) Colonial pattern (Class 12 view)

• The British built railways for their own needs, not for India's balanced growth:
• to carry raw materials (cotton, jute, coal, ores) from the inland areas to the ports of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras
• to serve plantations (tea in Assam and the Nilgiris)
• to reach hill stations (Shimla, Darjeeling, Ooty)

• to link cantonments (army bases) so troops could move quickly

• The result today: rail density is still low in the hill states, the North-East, central India and Rajasthan.

6. Metro rail

• Metro rail is a fast urban rail system. It runs on tracks kept separate from road traffic: underground, raised on pillars (elevated) or at ground level. It carries large numbers of city commuters.
• Firsts:
• Kolkata (1984) was India's first metro. It is now a railway zone.

• Delhi (2002) came next.

• Growth:

• The network passed 1,000 km, spread over 23 cities in 11 states. India became the third-largest metro network in the world (January 2025) [10].
• India overtook Japan in 2022 [11].

• By 2025, about 1,095 km was running in 26 cities. This includes 55 km of the Delhi–Meerut RRTS (Regional Rapid Transit System, Namo Bharat). It was 248 km in only 5 cities in 2014 [11].

• Environmental role:

• Metro rail and CNG buses (CNG: Compressed Natural Gas, a cleaner-burning fuel) reduce the number of private vehicles on the road.
• Fewer vehicles mean less urban air pollution and less traffic congestion.

Prelims Hooks

• First railway line: Bombay–Thane, 34 km, 1853.
• Gauge widths, widest to narrowest: Broad (1.676 m) > Standard (1.435 m, metros) > Metre (1.000 m) > Narrow (0.762 / 0.610 m).
• Zone and HQ traps: East Central → Hajipur; NF → Maligaon; South Western → Hubballi; South East Central → Bilaspur; West Central → Jabalpur; North Eastern → Gorakhpur; North Central → Prayagraj.
• South Coast Railway: HQ Visakhapatnam, announced 2019, effective 1 June 2026. Its divisions are Guntakal, Guntur, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam (the old Waltair) [7][8][9].
• Heritage narrow gauge lines and their states: Darjeeling → West Bengal; Nilgiri → Tamil Nadu; Kalka–Shimla → Haryana/Himachal Pradesh; Matheran → Maharashtra.
• Ghats and the cities they link: Thal Ghat → Mumbai–Nashik; Bhor Ghat → Mumbai–Pune.
• Electrification: about 99.6% of broad gauge by March 2026, against China 82%, Russia 52% and UK 39% [2][4]. The net-zero target is 2030 [5].
• Metro: Kolkata (1984) was first and Delhi (2002) second. India has the 3rd-largest metro network in the world and overtook Japan in 2022 [10][11].
• Trap: the Kolkata Metro is an Indian Railways zone. Delhi Metro is not. It is run by DMRC, a joint company of the Centre and the Delhi government.

Mains Points

• Uneven distribution (GS-I):
• Relief (Himalaya, Western Ghats), soil and surface (Thar sand, Kachchh swamps), forests (central tribal belt) and population density together make the network dense on the northern plains and thin in the North-East, the hills and central India.
• Colonial lines that ran from inland areas to the ports made this imbalance worse.

• Policy answers: new lines to the North-East and J&K, gauge conversion, and PM Gati Shakti planning.

• Project Unigauge (GS-III, infrastructure):

• One single gauge ends the need to move goods between trains of different gauges.
• This raises freight speed and capacity and links backward regions to markets.

• Heritage lines are kept, which balances development with conservation and tourism.

• Electrification for energy security and climate (GS-III):

• About 99.6% of broad gauge is electrified, and diesel use fell 62% after 2016-17 [4][6].
• This cuts oil imports and emissions, and supports the 2030 net-zero target [5].

• Its full climate benefit depends on getting more power from renewable sources.

• Metro rail for sustainable cities (GS-I urbanisation, GS-III environment):

• The network grew from 248 km in 5 cities (2014) to about 1,095 km in 26 cities (2025) [11].
• Together with CNG buses, it cuts congestion and air pollution.
• Challenges: high cost, low ridership on some lines, and weak last-mile links.