The North Central Railway (abbreviated NCR) is one of the 19 railway zones in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The largest railway station in NCR is

Kanpur Central Kanpur Central (formerly known as Cawnpore North Barracks, station code: CNB) is a central and junction railway station in the city of Kanpur and is one of the five central Indian railway stations. It is third busiest in country after Howrah ...

. It is headquartered at

Prayagraj Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

and comprises three divisions: Allahabad division, Jhansi division, Agra division of the erstwhile Northern Railway,

Jhansi Jhansi (; Hindi: झांसी, Urdu: ) is a historic city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It lies in the region of Bundelkhand on the banks of the Pahuj River, in the extreme south of Uttar Pradesh. Jhansi is the administrative head ...

division of the erstwhile Central Railway, and new Agra division.

History

The North Central Railway, in its present form, came into existence on 1 April 2003. The North Central Railway present network extends over a large area of North Central India, covering the states of

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

. By December 2017, railways for the first time installed 6,095

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

-enabled "Fog Pilot Assistance System"

railway signalling Railway signalling (), also called railroad signaling (), is a system used to control the movement of railway traffic. Trains move on fixed rails, making them uniquely susceptible to collision. This susceptibility is exacerbated by the enormou ...

devices in four most affected zones,

Northern Railway zone The Northern Railway (NR) is one of the 19 Railway zones of India and the northernmost zone of the Indian Railways. It is headquartered at Baroda House in New Delhi. History Officially notified as a new railway zone on 14 April 1952, ...

, North Central Railway zone,

North Eastern Railway zone The North Eastern Railway (abbreviated NER) is one of the 19 railway zones of Indian Railways in India. It is headquartered at Gorakhpur. Zonal Rail Training Institute (ZRTI) is established in district Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh. North Eastern ...

and

North Western Railway zone The North Western Railway (abbreviated NWR) is one of the 19 railway zones in India. It is headquartered at Jaipur,Rajasthan with 59,075+ employees, 658+ stations and a route length of more than 5761 km across at least some parts of four ...

, by doing away with the old practice of putting firecrackers on train tracks to alter train divers running trains on snail's pace. With these devices, train pilots precisely know in advance, about the location of signals, level-crossing gates and other such approaching markers. /economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/62042305.cms Indian Railways to use GPS-enabled devices to fight fog this season Economic Times, 12 Dec 2017. In 2022, the North Central Railway Zone achieved 100%

electrification Electrification is the process of powering by electricity and, in many contexts, the introduction of such power by changing over from an earlier power source. The broad meaning of the term, such as in the history of technology, economic histor ...

of its network.

Divisions

Serving the heartland of India, the North Central Railways comprises the following three divisions. #

Allahabad railway division Prayagraj railway division is one of the three railway divisions under North Central Railway zone of Indian Railways. This railway division was formed on 5 November 1951 and its headquarter is located at Prayagraj in the state of Uttar Pradesh of ...

Jhansi railway division Jhansi railway division is one of the three railway divisions under North Central Railway zone of Indian Railways. This railway division was formed on 5 November 1951 and its headquarters are located at Jhansi in the state of Uttar Pradesh of Ind ...

Agra railway division Agra railway division is one of the three railway divisions under North Central Railway zone of Indian Railways. This railway division was formed on 1 April 2003 and its headquarter is located at Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh of India. All ...

Area covered

The zone spreads across all three divisions mentioned above. It extends from

Ghaziabad Ghaziabad () is a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and a part of Delhi NCR. It is the administrative headquarters of Ghaziabad district and is the largest city in western Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 1,729,000. Ghaziabad Mun ...

(excl.) in the north to Mughalsarai (excl.) in the east on

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

Howrah Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is th ...

trunk route and from

Palwal Palwal is a city and a municipal council. It is the headquarters of Palwal district, the 21st district of Haryana state in northern India. It is a centre of the cotton trade in the area. It is also a part of National Capital Region. Etymol ...

(excl.) to Bina (excl.) on New Delhi

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

corridor. North Central Railway span parts of UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with about 3062 route km of BG comprising predominantly double line- electrified sections defining the sides and diagonals of the Golden Quadrilateral. NCR consists of 202 main line stations & 221 branch line stations. This zone forms a corridor for trains almost directions viz. East to north and north to east a total of 29 pairs of mail-express trains daily west/south to north and north to south/west total 37 pairs of M/Exp. Trains daily east to Southwest and southwest to east a total of 25 pairs of Mail/Express trains daily East to West & West to East a total of 12 pairs of Mail/Express Trains Daily.

Major stations

Major Trains

Shram Shakti Express The 12451 / 12452 Shram Shakti Express is an Indian Railways ''Superfast'' train which daily runs non-stop overnight between the cities of Kanpur and . It covers the 440 km of distance in 6 hours and has a ''priority advantage'' over other ...

, New Delhi – Kanpur Central # Prayagraj Express, New Delhi - Allahabad Jn #

Kanpur–New Delhi Shatabdi Express The 12033 / 12034 Kanpur–New Delhi Shatabdi Express is the Shatabdi train connecting with . The load of passengers in Lucknow Swarna Shatabdi Express was heavy from . Due to the excessive passenger load on Lucknow Shatabdi from Kanpur Central ...

, New Delhi – Kanpur Central # Allahabad–New Delhi Humsafar Express, New Delhi – Allahabad Jn # Allahabad–Anand Vihar Terminal Humsafar Express, Anand Vihar Terminal – Allahabad Jn # Kanpur Central–Anand Vihar Terminal Express, Anand Vihar Terminal – Kanpur Central #

Chambal Express The 12175 / 12176 Chambal Express is a Express train of the Indian Railways connecting in West Bengal and of Madhya Pradesh. It is currently being operated with 12175/12176 train numbers three days a week. Service The 12175/Chambal Express ...

, Howrah Jn – Gwalior Jn/Mathura Jn

Workshop and manpower

There are two workshops on the North Central Railway. The Wagon Repair Workshop in Jhansi deals with the repairing of wagon stock of Indian Railways and was established in 1895. Rail Spring Karkhana, Sithouli, and

Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...

deals with manufacturing of Coaching Stock springs as well as Locomotive springs. The NCR also has an electric loco shed where the damaged engines of

Magadh Express The 20801 / 20802 ''Magadh Express'' is a superfast train running between New Delhi and . Its number is 20801/20802 and it departs from Islampur and reaches New Delhi the following day. In the past, its number was 2401/2402 and was run from t ...

is fitted with modern technology to run the

Duronto Express Duronto Express is a category of long-distance non-stop source to destination trains run by the Indian Railways. Initially these trains did not have any ticketing stops between the origin and the destination, but since January 2016 it is possi ...

. The NCR has 69,644 staff members. NCR in its effort to boost use of

solar power Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic e ...

under

National Solar Mission The National Solar Mission is an initiative of the Government of India and State Governments to promote solar power. The mission is one of the several policies of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The program was inaugurated as the J ...

has selected Vivaan Solar, a company from

to install a total of 1.5 MW

rooftop solar A rooftop solar power system, or rooftop PV system, is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a syst ...

power project at the wagon repair workshop of

Jhansi Junction railway station Jhansi Junction railway station (station code: VGLB), officially known as Virangana Lakshmibai Jhansi Junction railway station, is a major railway junction in the city of Jhansi in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the busies ...

. The company will install rooftop

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

on production sheds and service buildings of the complex.

Loco sheds

Electric Loco Shed, Kanpur Electric Loco Shed, Kanpur is a motive power depot performing locomotive maintenance and repair facility for electric locomotives of the Indian Railways, located at Kanpur of the North Central Railway zone in Uttar Pradesh, India. Operation B ...

Electric Loco Shed, Jhansi Electric Loco Shed, Jhansi is a motive power depot performing locomotive maintenance and repair facility for electric locomotives of the Indian Railways, located at Jhansi of the North Central Railway zone in Uttar Pradesh, India. Operation Be ...

* Diesel Loco Shed, Jhansi

Gallery

File:Jhansi Junction.jpg, Jhansi Junction Railway Station File:Rail Station, Allahabad.jpg, Allahabad Railway Station

External links

References

{{coord missing, Uttar Pradesh Zones of Indian Railways 2003 establishments in India