(Last Updated on : 12/11/2013)
North Eastern Railway, often abbreviated as NER, is believed to be one among the most significant zones of Indian Railways. On 14th April 1952, two railways systems were amalgamated to form North Eastern Railway. North Eastern Railway has its headquarter in Gorakhpur and is comprised of Izzatnagar Division, Varanasi Division and Lucknow Division.
The North Eastern Railway routes are spread over 3402.46 routes and mainly serve Uttar Pradesh, Western Districts of Bihar and Uttarkhand. Several tourist spots in northeast India are connected with the trains of North Eastern Railway. Some of the tourist hubs, encompassed by the trains of North Eastern Railway are Sarnath, Varanasi, Allahabad, Lumbani, Nainital, Kausani, Dudhwa, Kushinagar, Ranikhet and many others.
Northern Eastern Railway is outfitted with the largest Route Relay Interlocking (RRI) Systems in the entire world. Workshops on Northern Railways have already tried to produce several signaling gears. The North Eastern Railway has been successful in erecting many footbridges in the same traffic block at the same time. Different workshops of North Eastern Railway concentrate on actions like Vacuum Pressure Impregnation Plants and ART Conversion.
North Eastern Railway inaugurated computerized passenger reservation system in 1986. Other facilities provided by the Northeastern railways include Recorded Coach Guidance Display System, Automatic Teller Machines (ATM), Electronic Display Systems at stations, Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS), Self Dial Telephone Reservation Enquiry Booths (I ASK), Reservation Availability Position Information Display (RAPID) and Currency Exchange facilities.
Introduction of the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) is considered to be one of the major achievements of the North Eastern Railway. Important stations under the command of North Eastern Railway have installed computerized Self Printing Ticket Machines to reduce the occurrence of long queues. This facility has greatly helped the unreserved travelers to get platform tickets. Northern Eastern Railway has started a system of working simultaneously on several sites for successful completion of Projects.
With the renaissance in the economy, North Eastern Railway has found that technologically up-grading itself as a very motivating challenge. And the North Eastern Railways engaged itself with great commitment to the commission of growth and is tuning itself to the changes in the socio-economic scenario of the nation.