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Western Railway
History
Founded in November 1951, Western Railway was the outcome of the merger of BB & CI (Bombay Baroda & Central India) Railways with other State Railways such as Saurashtra Railway, Jaipur State Railway and Rajputana Railway.
Present Status
Western Railway services coastal Maharashtra, Gujarat, Eastern parts of Rajasthan and some parts of Madhya Pradesh. There are six divisions of Western Railway. Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Ratlam, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. It was a much larger zone before the reorganization of zones when two former divisions of. Jaipur and Ajmer were merged into North West Railway and the Kota division was merged into West Central Railway.
Like Central Railway, Western Railway also has its Headquarters in Mumbai located at Churchgate station. Western Railway is one of the busiest network zones of the Indian Railways that services many ports of Gujarat such as Kandla, Mundra, Pipavav, Navlakhi, Bedi, Rozi, Okha and Bhavnagar and Mumbai in Maharashtra thus being an important factor in the development of the region.
The line is made of mixed gauge with broad gauge, meter gauge and narrow gauge making a total of 6478.84. The gauge-wise kilometres of Western Railways at present are as under:
Broad Gauge 4263.23 kms.
Metre Gauge 1531.26 kms.
Narrow Gauge 684.35 kms.
TOTAL 6478.84 kms
Mumbai Suburban Railway Network
The Mumbai Suburban Railway Network is part of Western Railway. It spans Mumbai from Churchgate to Virar which has now been extended to Dahanu Road covering a distance of 120 Kms and 38 stations.
Mumbai Suburban Railway Network has been a pioneer in the progress of Indian Railways. The chief milestones of this network that are part of the Golden History of Indian Railways are:
- The first suburban service in Mumbai with steam traction was introduced in April 1867 between Grant Road and Bassien Road. Later it was extended to Churchgate in 1870.
- The first electric train on this section was introduced in 1928 between Colaba and Andheri.
- Today 30 lakh commuters use this suburban service every day.