Abbreviationss used for Indian Railway stations

I see messages referring to trains going to "CBE" or "SBC"; what are these codes?

IR uses alphabetic codes to identify the railway stations. Some selected codes are given below. The selection below is not really meant as an aid to the traveller; many entries are chosen for railfan interest and may be otherwise obscure.

Extensive lists of station codes are available:

• See the section on books for details of a publication, "Alphabetical List of Indian Railway Stations", which has a pretty comprehensive list of station codes.
• You can also use the Indian Railways Reservation Onlineweb site to get station codes for various stations.
• See the related sections listed above for some large lists of station codes.

Many codes have obvious connections to the names of the stations they represent (AGC = Agra Cantonment, ALD = Allahabad). Others are less obvious but nevertheless have some mnemonic value. Some codes were chosen not to conflict with other codes by adding or altering a letter (perhaps MAQ, ADI, etc. originated this way).

A few codes come from old spellings of places (BZA from Bezwada for today's Vijayawada). A 'C' sometimes stands for Cantonment; a 'J' for Junction; sometimes 'S' and 'N' stand for south and north. Letters 'X', 'Q', 'Z' are sometimes used when the code for one station has to be distinguished from the code for another of a similar name. But one can't go too far in analyzing the codes in this way.

Some codes are complete mysteries, such as HX for Cuddappah in the Guntakal division of SCR, and BXS for Pichchandarkovil in the Tiruchirapalli division of SR. PTC for Kodikkarai, another oddity, is likely explained by its former name, Point Calimere. Other odd ones are CHE (Srikakulam Road, VSKP-HWH line), CJ (Kanchipuram, probably from Canjeevaram Junction), and YP (Errupalem, perhaps from Yerrupalem?). Sometimes codes inadvertently spell out words, such as Seroni Road on CR, whose code is SEX.

In recent years (1991?), IR has changed some 2- and 3-letter codes for stations whose names have only 4 letters or fewer (e.g., Ajni) by making the name of the station itself the station code. Examples of these include Pune (PA became PUNE), Gaya (GYA became GAYA), Puri (PUI became PURI), Kota (KTT became KOTA), Adra (ADA became ADRA).

Important station codes that changed because the station name changed in recent years include BB (Bombay Victoria Terminus) which became CSTM (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Mumbai), CLAT (Kurla Terminus) which became LTT (Lokmanya Tilak Terminus). A new code, MCT (Mumbai Central) has been introduced to replace BCT (Bombay Central) but the latter continues in use. On the other hand, sometimes station names change without any changes to the codes; e.g., MAS (Madras) for Chennai Central, and also Kolhapur (KOP) which was renamed Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Station.

(See Ajai Banerji's article on station name changes.)

Different station codes are sometimes used for the same location served by different gauges. E.g., GIMB for Gandhidham BG, and GIM for the station on the meter-gauge route. INDB is the BG Indore code, and INDM the MG code. Sometimes these really are separate stations, even if located close to each other; sometimes the stations may be part of the same complex. The stations in such cases may or may not have separate station masters and other staff. Dadar is an interesting case as it has two codes DDR (on WR) and DR (on CR) both of which are part of a large station complex (all broad-gauge); the two stations have separate station masters and staff, as they belong to different zonal railways.

Station codes are, as a rule, purely alphabetic. All passenger stations certainly have codes that are solely alphabetic. However, IR also uses codes to distinguish particular signal cabins and minor halts, and sometimes these may have digits as well. An example is 'M5B' for Cabin Mile 5B on the Budge Budge section of ER. A few codes have other characters such appended to them, perhaps to distinguish particular signal cabins within a station's jurisdiction -- these therefore can also exceed the usual 4-character limit on station codes. E.g., IBP No. 10 is 'IBP10' (on ER) (?? an intermediate block post?); Sitarampur Link Cabin is 'STN L/C'

There are station codes that are single letters, as well as those that are four letters long (and perhaps one that is five letters long). These and other miscellanea about station codes can be found in the section on trivia.

Some selected station codes are given below.

Other station abbreviations

Q. What about the abbreviations used for suburban services, and other (non-standard) station abbreviations?

In some places -- especially Mumbai -- special codes are used to indicate the destination of a suburban train (either on the rake (CR), or on platform indicators (CR/WR)). These are not the official station codes, but usually just 1- or 2-letter mnemonics.

Some of the commonly-used ones around Mumbai are:

• A : Andheri (WR), Ambarnath (CR)
• AD : Andheri (CR)
• AS : Asangaon
• B : Bandra (CR Bandra locals via the Harbour Line)
• BL : Badlapur
• Bo : Borivali
• BR, BP : Belapur
• BY : Bhayander
• C : Kurla (from Coorla), also Churchgate??
• CH : Kurla via Harbour line
• CM : Chembur
• D : Dadar
• G : Ghatkopar
• Go : Goregaon
• K : Kalyan
• M : Mankhurd, also Malad??
• MU, MB : Mumbai (used at Itarsi, Bhopal, etc.)
• N : Kasara (from North-East line)
• PL, P : Panvel
• S : Karjat (from South-East line)
• T : Thane
• TL : Titwala
• V : Vashi, also Virar?
• Vs : Vasai Road

'Y' is often used to indicate an empty rake returning to its shed for service (at termini -- Churchgate, CSTM)

Other 2- or 3-letter codes are sometimse used to refer to stations, in a seemingly ad hoc manner. E.g., at Nellore, Chennai Central bound trains are marked 'CEN' on the indicator boards. At Bhopal and Itarsi, Mumbai-bound trains are marked 'MU' or 'MB'.