The Railway Press at Royapuram was expanded during 1957. K. R. Ramanujam was appointed the first General Manager of the newly formed Southern Railways. Divisional system of working on the Southern Railway was introduced in stages, and the dates on which the various Divisions started working are given below: Organisation The Southern Railway is headed by the General Manager, assisted by an Additional General Manager. Divisions Southern Railway has its headquarters in Chennai and has the following six divisions: Chennai railway division Trichy railway division Madurai railway division Palakkad railway division Salem railway division Thiruvananthapuram railway division Podanur railway division (functional till 1956 later transferred to Palakkad Division) Jurisdiction It covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and small portions of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. More than 50 crore passengers travel on the network every year. Andaman and Nicobar areas also to be covered under the new railway project sanctioned for Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Operations The zone operates both passenger and freight trains. The A1 graded stations of the zone are Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Ernakulam Junction, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Coimbatore junction, Madurai Junction, Kozhikode and Thrissur. Other major stations of the zone includes Trichy, Salem, Tirunelveli, Tambaram, Erode, Ernakulam Town, Aluva, Thanjavur junction, Arakkonam Junction, Katpadi, Mangalore Central, Mangalore Jn., Kumbakonam, Dindigul, Palakkad Junction, Shoranur Junction, Viluppuram, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Thiruvananthapuram Kochuveli, Nagercoil Junction, Kanniyakumari, Jolarpettai Junction, Kollam Junction, Karur, Pollachi Junction, Thalassery, Kannur, Puducherry, Tiruvallur, Perambur and Avadi. Passenger trains range from day intercity trains to overnight trains, long-distance trains to other zones, Shatabdi and passenger trains stopping at many stations. The zone owns a large number of coaches. These are maintained at coach care centres. Basin Bridge coach care centre serving Chennai central is one of the biggest in the country. Most major stations have a coach care Centre. The stations which don't have such facilities are served by trains through sometimes complex rake-sharing arrangements which also increases the utilization of the coaches. Apart from these Centres, the zone has MEMU and DEMU car sheds. These are available in Avadi, Trichy, Erode, Palakkad and Kollam. The zone also operates suburban system in Chennai. Freight operations mainly include container traffic from all the ports falling under its jurisdiction (Chennai, Ennore, Kochi, Mangaluru and Thoothukkudi are some of the major ports) and coal-traffic bound to the thermal power stations in Tamil Nadu state from the ports. Public sector oil