The history of Rail Transport in India began in the mid 19th century. Prior to 1850, there were no railway lines in the country. It changed with the first railway in 1853.

Railways were gradually developed, for a short while by the British East India Company and subsequently by the Colonial British Government, primarily to transport troops for their numerous wars, and secondly to transport cotton for export to mills in UK.

Transport of Indian passengers received little interest till 1947 when India got freedom and started to develop railways in a more judicious manner.

By 1929, there were 66,000 km (41,000 mi) of railway lines serving most of the districts in the country. At that time, the railways represented a capital value of some £687 million, and carried over 620 million passengers and approximately 90 million tons of goods a year.

The railways in India were a group of privately owned companies, mostly with British shareholders and whose profits invariably returned to Britain.

The military engineers of the East India Company, later of the British Indian Army, contributed to the birth and growth of the railways which gradually became the responsibility of civilian technocrats and engineers.

Though, construction and operation of rail transportation in the North West Frontier Province and in foreign nations during war or for military purposes was the responsibility of the military engineers.

Following independence in 1947, India innate an old rail network. About 40% of the railway lines were in the newly created Pakistan.

Many lines had to be rerouted through Indian Territory and new lines had to be constructed to connect important cities such as Jammu.

A total of 42 separate railway systems, including 32 lines owned by the former Indian princely states existed at the time of independence spanning a total of 55,000 km.

These were compound into the Indian Railways. Since then, independent India has more than quadrupled the length of railway lines in India.

In 1952, it was decided to replace the existing rail networks by zones. A total of six zones came into being in 1952. As India developed its economy, almost all railway production units started to be built indigenously.

The Railways began to electrify its lines to AC. On 6 September 2003 six further zones were made from existing zones for administration purpose and one more zone added in 2006. The Indian Railways has now sixteen zones.

In 1985, steam locomotives were phased out. In 1987, computerization of reservation first was carried out in Bombay and in 1989 the train numbers were standardized to four digits.

In 1995, the entire railway reservation was computerized through the railway's internet. In 1998, the Konkan Railway was opened, spanning difficult terrain through the Western Ghats.

In 1984 Kolkata became the first Indian city to get a metro rail system, followed by the Delhi Metro in 2002, Bangalore's Namma Metro in 2011, the Mumbai Metro and Mumbai Monorail in 2014 and Chennai Metro in 2015 . Many other Indian cities are currently planning urban rapid transit systems.

Railway Zones

Southern Railway
Central Railway
Western Railway
Eastern Railway
Northern Railway
North Eastern Railway
South Eastern Railway
Northeast Frontier Railway
South Central Railway
East CentralRailway
North Western Railway
East Coast Railway
North CentralRailway
South East Central Railway
South Western Railway
West Central Railway