CR completes 60 years today

The Central Railway (CR) will complete 60 years of its existence on Saturday. On the occasion,the heritage building of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) will be decorated with lights for three days.

CR was formed on November 5,1951,by integrating Nizam State,Scindia State and Dholpur State Railways with GIP Railway. In 1966,one more railway,South Central Railway,was formed by merging Solapur Division from CR and Secunderabad,Hubli,Vijayawada divisions from SR. In 1977,Solapur Division was merged with CR and Guntakal Division from SR was included in South Central Railway.

In 2003,seven more zones were created. Jabalpur and Bhopal divisions of Central Railway were included in West Central Railway and Jhansi Division was included in North Central Railway. At present,CR has five divisions — Mumbai,Bhusaval,Nagpur,Solapur and Pune —with a network of 477 stations, with 710 mail/express/passenger trains running daily.

With the merger of the Indian Midland Railway Company with the G.I.P. Railway Company in 1900,the CR’s frontiers were extended from Delhi in the north,Kanpur and Allahabad in the north-east and Nagpur in the east to Raichur in the south-east.