Company Description
Western Railway in its present form came into existence on 5th November, 1951 by the merger of its forerunner, the erstwhile Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway (BB&CI), with other State Railways viz, Saurashtra, Rajputana and Jaipur. The BB&CI Railway was itself incorporated in 1855, starting with the construction of a 29 mile broad gauge track from Ankleshwar to Utran in Gujarat state on the West Coast. In 1864, the railway was extended up to Mumbai. Subsequently, the project was further extended beyond Baroda in a north easterly direction towards Godhra, Ratlam, Nagda and thereafter northwards towards Mathura to eventually link with the Great India Peninsula Railway, now Central Railway, which had already started operating in Mumbai in 1853. In 1883, a Metre Guage Railway system, initially linking Delhi with Agra, Jaipur and Ajmer, was established.
Western Railway serves entire Gujarat, parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Western Railway comprises of six divisions viz. Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Ratlam, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. Two erstwhile divisions viz. Jaipur and Ajmer were merged into North West Railway on 1st October 2002 and Kota division was made a part of West Central Railway on 1st April 2003. A new division i.e. Ahmedabad was created on 1st April 2003. The Western coast of India served by Western Railway has a number of ports, important among them being Kandla, Mundra, Pipavav, Navlakhi, Bedi, Rozi, Okha and Bhavnagar.