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Northern Railway
Created in 1952 by the merger of Jodhpur Railway, Bikaner Railway, Eastern Punjab Railway and a part of the East Indian Railway, the Northern Railway is the one of the original nine zones of Indian Railways and also the largest in terms of route kms (6807 kms). It is now one of the 16 zones of the re-organized Indian Railways. Northern railway has its Zonal headquarters at Baroda House in New Delhi and services the States of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
There are five divisions of Northern Railway located at Delhi, Ambala in Haryana, Firozepur in Punjab, Lucknow and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh.
History
Northern Railway has been part of the glorious history of the Indian Railways. The first passenger railway line in the North from Allahabad to Kanpur was opened in 1859 followed by the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka line in 1889. Before the reorganization, Northern Railway spanned most of North India with eight divisions. The reorganization pruned it to its present size and structure of five divisional zones.
Pioneer
Northern Railway has proved to be a pioneer among the different zones and has many firsts to its credit.
- The first passenger railway line in the North from Allahabad to Kanpur was opened in 1859.
- Northern Railways was the first zone to introduce the computerized passenger reservation system on February 19, 1986,
- Northern Railway was the first to introduce diesel and electric locomotive simulators in India at Tughlaqabad and Kanpur locomotive sheds to help hone the skills of working and new train drivers training for high speed train operations
- The Tughlaqabad diesel locomotive shed of Northern Railway was the first to get ISO 14000 certification on Indian Railway.
Workshops
There are eight workshops operated by Northern Railways all of which are ISO 9000 certified
- Locomotive Workshop at Charbagh, Lucknow
- Carriage & Wagon Workshop at Alambagh, Lucknow
- Carriage & Wagon Workshop at Yamunanagar
- Carriage & Wagon Workshop at Kalka
- Bridge Workshop at Jalandhar
- Bridge Workshop at Lucknow
- Engineering Workshop at Jalandhar
- Signal & Telecom Workshop at Ghaziabad
Facilities
- Introduction of the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) for unreserved rail passenger that allows them to purchase unreserved tickets 3 days in advance from current booking counters.
- Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS),
- Electronic Display Systems at stations,
- Recorded Coach Guidance Display System,
- Reservation Availability Position Information Display (RAPID),
- Self Dial Telephone Reservation Enquiry Booths,
- Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) and Money Changing Facilities at Stations.
- Ladies Special trains were introduced between New Delhi and Palwal in 2009.
Other Achievements
To significantly improve efficiency and safety in the train operations, Northern Railway implemented the Route Relay Interlocked system which is certified by the Guinness World of Records as one of the world's largest Route Relay Interlocking System. Northern Railway is equipped with 40 Route Relay Interlocking systems.
Commuter Service
The Delhi Suburban Railway, the commuter rail service operated by Northern Railway and run using EMUs and MEMU rakes, covers Delhi and the neighboring Faridabad, Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad and other adjoining places in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh..
Delhi Ring Railway
To facilitate the large number of goods trains originating, terminating, or passing through the city to bypass the main passenger stations of New Delhi, Old Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin, the Delhi Ring Railway service was introduced in the late 1970s. The track was called the 'Delhi Avoiding Line'. However the passenger service of Ring Rail has not been successful with only 10 to 15% of capacity being used.