North Western Railway Zone (India)
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11-North Western Railway
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| Locale | Rajasthan |
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| Dates of operation | 2002– |
| Predecessor | Northern Railway zone |
| Track gauge | Mixed |
| Headquarters | Jaipur |
| Website | NWR official website |
The North Western Railway is one of the sixteen railway zones in India. It is headquartered at Jaipur, with 59,075+ employees, 658+ stations and a route length of more than 5761 km across at least some parts of four states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana (c. 2009). NWR operates international rail service Thar Express from Jodhpur to Karachi. This zone is the key enabler of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project by virtue of running railways 1,500 km long Western Dedicated Freight Corridor.
In 1882, a 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) wide metre gauge line from Marwar Junction to Pali was built by the Rajputana Railway. It was extended to Luni in 1884 and Jodhpur on 9 March 1885. New Jodhpur Railway was later combined with Bikaner Railway to form Jodhpur-Bikaner Railway in 1889, when the Bikaner Princely State and Jodhpur Princely State started constructing the Jodhpur–Bikaner Railway within the Rajputana Agency. In 1891, the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) wide metre gauge Jodhpur–Bikaner line was commissioned under the Rajputana-Malwa Railway, Jodhpur-Merta Road section was commissioned on 8 April, the Merta Road-Nagaur section on 16 October, and the Nagaur-Bikaner section on 9 December. In 1900, Jodhpur–Bikaner line combined with Jodhpur-Hyderabad Railway, some part of this railway is in Pakistan, leading to connection with Hyderabad of Sindh Province. In 1901–02, the Jodhpur–Bikaner line was extended to Bathinda in 1901–02 to connect it with the metre gauge section of the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway and the meter gauge of North Western Railway Delhi–Fazilka line via Hanumangarh. In 1924, the combined entity Jodhpur and Bikaner Railways was split to function as two independent Railway companies. After Independence, a part of Jodhpur Railway went to West Pakistan. In 1926, the workshop at Bikaner (Lalgarh) was set up to carry out periodic overhauling of metre gauge coaches and wagons. In 1951, on 5 November the Jodhpur–Bikaner line was merged with the Western Railway. Sometime around or prior to 1991, the construction work for the conversion from meter gauge to 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) wide broad gauge of the Jodhpur–Bikaner line, along with the link to Phulera, were started,, and it was already functioning as broad gauge Jodhpur–Merta City–Bikaner–Bathinda line by 2008. In 2002, on 1 October the North Western Railway zone came into existence. In 2012, the Bikaner Heritage Rail Museum was opened at Bikaner to displays items related to the Jodhpur and Bikaner Railway.
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