Southern Railway Zone
Coordinates: 13°04′57″N 80°16′37″E / 13.08240°N 80.27705°E / 13.08240; 80.27705
| Southern Railway | |
|---|---|
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Southern Railway headquarters, Chennai |
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| Locale | Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry |
| Dates of operation | 1951-present– |
| Predecessor | South Indian Railway |
| Track gauge | Broad gauge only |
| Electrification | yes |
| Length | 5098 |
| Headquarters | Chennai Central Railway Station |
| Website | SR official website |
The Southern Railway, headquartered at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, is one of the 17 zones of Indian Railways. It is the earliest of the 17 zones of the Indian Railways created in independent India. It was created on 14 April 1951 by merging three state railways, namely, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, the South Indian Railway Company, and the Mysore State Railway. The South Indian Railway was originally created in the British colonial times as Great Southern India Railway Co. founded in Britain in 1853 and registered in 1859. Its original headquarters was in Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) and was registered as a company in London only in 1890.
Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following six divisions: Chennai, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Salem, Palakkad, and Thiruvananthapuram. It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 500 million passengers travel on the network every year. This zone of the Indian Railways differs from the other zones of India in that its revenue is derived from passengers and not from freight.
Chennai Central, Coimbatore City Junction, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Mangalore Central, Erode Junction, Madurai Junction, Ernakulam Junction, Tirunelveli Junction, Tiruchirappalli Junction and Salem Junction are some of the important stations under Southern Railway Division. Chennai Central station handles more than a million passengers every day. Many of the major stations are being upgraded to world-class standards.
Read more about Southern Railway Zone: Timeline and Key Events, Trains of Southern Railway, Divisions of Southern Railway, Units of Southern Railway, See Also
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—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)