NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 104 of 149

Correct — B, Kolkata. The Eastern Railway zone, formed in 1952, has its headquarters at Kolkata, and it works the lines across West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar through divisions such as Howrah, Sealdah, Asansol and Malda. Kolkata is in fact unusual in hosting two zonal headquarters, since South Eastern Railway is also headquartered in the city.

• (a)Bhubaneswar — Bhubaneswar is the headquarters of East Coast Railway, the zone serving Odisha and the adjoining coast. It is the near-miss that mineral-and-railway questions like to plant.
• (c)Hajipur — Hajipur, in Bihar, is the headquarters of East Central Railway, a different eastern zone created in the 2002-03 reorganisation.
• (d)Guwahati — Guwahati, more precisely Maligaon, is the headquarters of Northeast Frontier Railway, which serves the north-eastern States.

Indian Railways is administered in zones, each under a General Manager and divided further into divisions under Divisional Railway Managers. Eastern Railway is one of the oldest, formed on 14 April 1952 by grouping three divisions of the East Indian Railway with the Bengal Nagpur Railway and the Sealdah division of the erstwhile Bengal Assam Railway, and the network's eastern region has since been resliced more than once, which is why several similarly named zones now sit close together — Eastern, South Eastern, East Central and East Coast.

The reliable way through railway-zone questions is to fix the confusable clusters rather than the whole list. In the east, remember Eastern and South Eastern both at Kolkata, East Central at Hajipur and East Coast at Bhubaneswar. In the north-east, keep North Eastern at Gorakhpur apart from Northeast Frontier at Maligaon in Guwahati. Note also that the zone map is not frozen — zones have been added since this paper was set, so verify the current count against the Railways' own listing rather than an old table.

• Eastern Railway, formed in 1952, is headquartered at Kolkata.
• South Eastern Railway is also headquartered in Kolkata, at Garden Reach, so the city hosts two zonal headquarters.
• East Coast Railway is headquartered at Bhubaneswar and East Central Railway at Hajipur.
• Northeast Frontier Railway is headquartered at Maligaon in Guwahati, while North Eastern Railway is at Gorakhpur.
• Each zone is headed by a General Manager and is divided into divisions under Divisional Railway Managers.

• Confusing Eastern with East Coast or East Central Railway, which are three different zones.
• Assuming each zone's headquarters lies in the State it mostly serves.
• Mixing up North Eastern Railway at Gorakhpur with Northeast Frontier Railway at Guwahati.

NDA asks for the headquarters of a named zone, or sets the whole zone-to-headquarters list as a match.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The headquarters of East Coast Railway is at

  • (a)Kolkata
  • (b)Bhubaneswar
  • (c)Hajipur
  • (d)Bilaspur

  Answer(b) Bhubaneswar — the zone serving Odisha and the neighbouring coast.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which city is the headquarters of Northeast Frontier Railway?

  • (a)Gorakhpur
  • (b)Guwahati
  • (c)Patna
  • (d)Siliguri

  Answer(b) Guwahati — specifically Maligaon, and it is not to be confused with North Eastern Railway at Gorakhpur.