Come mid-May and the magnificent building of South Eastern Railway’s (SER) headquarters here will host a get-together of retired as well as serving Chief Operations Managers (COMs), Chief Operating Superintendents (COPSs) and Chief Freight Traffic Managers (CFTMs) of SER, East Coast Railway (ECoR) and South East Central Railway (SECR).

The occasion: to celebrate the past glory of SER and the present performance of SER, ECoR and SECR. Not without reason though. Till 10 years ago, the areas now served by ECoR and SECR were all under SER.

A few days ago, SER, ECoR and SECR each handled 6,000 eight-wheeler units (wagons) on a single day, a record performance. Also, the indication is that the three zonal railways together may end 2012-13 with a total throughput of 400 million tonnes (mt).

Till March 31, 2003, SER was the largest zonal railway of the Indian Railway with its network spread to nine states. It was also the largest freight loading zone. SER handled for the first time 100 mt of revenue-earning originating freight traffic in 1987-88, which is considered a landmark in the history of Indian Railways, and 203 mt in 2002-03.

The year 2002-03 is also important for another reason. What was one zonal railway, SER, till March 31, 2003, became three zonal railways, namely, SER, ECoR and SECR, from the next day, that is, from April 1, 2003, following a government decision.

In other words, 100 mt was handled in as many years and it took another 15 years to double the throughput by undivided SER and now an additional 200 mt in 10 years by the zones which were all parts of the single SER 10 years ago.

Even now, SER is known to many people as BNR, the abbreviation of Bengal-Nagpur Railway , the pre-Independence name given by the British. “We still consider ourselves the members of undivided BNR/SER and take pride in it”, the COM of one of the three zonal railways told Business line .

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