[1] Consequent upon the parliament's approval, East Coast Railway was the first of the seven new zones to be inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India H. D. Deve Gowda on 8 August 1996.

The Waltair division was notified to be bifurcated from the East Coast Railway zone on 27 February 2019.

[2] The geographical jurisdiction of East Coast Railway zone extends over three states encompassing almost all of Odisha and Bastar, Mahasamund and Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh and a minor part Palasa, Sompeta and seven other stations of Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh.

[5] The East Coast Railway line integrated with the commissioned Howrah-Chennai electrified trunk route on 29 November 2005.

The major railway stations in the entire zone are Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Chatrapur, Puri, Sambalpur, Khurda Road, Balugaon, Rayagada, Brahmapur, Angul, Dhenkanal, Bhadrak, Balangir, Bargarh, Jajpur Keonjhar Road, Titilagarh, Kesinga, Lanjigarh, Koraput, Mahasamund, Jagdalpur, Kendujhargarh, Palasa and Barbil.