Central Railway Apprentice Recruitment 2026: 2,861 Posts, Apply by 2 Dec

Central Railway Apprentice Recruitment 2026 is open for 2,861 Act Apprentice slots across five clusters in Maharashtra. Applications run from 3 November, 11 AM, to 2 December 2026, 5 PM, on rrccr.com, the Railway Recruitment Cell portal for Central Railway. You need a 10th pass with at least 50 percent marks and an ITI certificate in the notified trade. The stipend is Rs 9,600 a month for one year of training.

Read the fine print before you pay the Rs 100 fee. This is an apprenticeship under the Apprentices Act, 1961. It is one year of training inside railway workshops, and the notification says plainly that it carries no promise of a railway job afterwards. There is no written exam either. RRC builds the merit list from your 10th and ITI marks, so the marks you already have matter more than any preparation you can still do.

Central Railway Apprentice Recruitment 2026 at a glance

No exam. Your old marks decide it

This is the part most coverage skips past, and it changes who should apply. The RRC CR Apprentice merit list uses the simple average of your matriculation percentage and your ITI percentage. The notification counts the aggregate marks in matriculation, not individual subjects, and for ITI it uses the average in the consolidated mark sheet for all semesters, or the marks on the provisional National Trade Certificate. If two candidates tie, the older one goes first. If the dates of birth match too, the one who passed matriculation earlier goes first.

There is no centralised merit list. RRC prepares separate lists cluster wise, unit wise, trade wise and community wise, each equal to the number of slots. That means you are competing inside your cluster and your trade, not against all 2,861 applicants at once. A trade with few applicants in your cluster is a very different contest from Fitter in Mumbai.

The 2,861 figure is provisional, and the notification says RRC can raise or lower it. PwBD and ex-servicemen seats sit inside the totals, not on top of them. If SC seats stay unfilled they pass to ST candidates, and the other way round, and unfilled OBC seats pass to unreserved candidates.

Two groups should not apply at all. The notification bars anyone already undergoing apprenticeship training, or who has already completed it. Engineering graduates and diploma holders are also not eligible, because they fall under a separate apprenticeship scheme. RRC rejects a form filed in spite of either rule.

Who can apply

You must have completed 15 years of age and must not have completed 24 years as on 3 November 2026. The upper limit relaxes by 5 years for SC and ST candidates and by 3 years for OBC candidates. PwBD candidates get 10 years of relaxation, and ex-servicemen get up to 10 more years on top of their service, subject to the conditions in the notification.

The notification prints the full date of birth range for each community, so check your own band before you pay.

On qualification, the rule is 10th class or its equivalent under the 10+2 system with minimum 50 percent marks in aggregate, from a recognised board, plus a National Trade Certificate in the notified trade issued by the National Council for Vocational Training, or a provisional certificate issued by NCVT or the State Council for Vocational Training. Keep your Aadhaar number ready. Registration asks for the 12 digit Aadhaar number, and candidates from Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Assam can use a voter ID, passport, driving licence or another valid government ID instead.

You pick one cluster only, and inside it you give your units in order of preference. Read the trade wise slot tables for that cluster first. If you pick a unit where your trade has no slot, the application becomes meaningless, and the notification says you cannot change it after final submission. One application per candidate. File two with different details and both get rejected.

Five clusters, one choice

The five clusters are Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Nagpur and Solapur. Mumbai covers the Parel and Matunga workshops, the Kalyan and Kurla sheds, and Wadi Bunder. Bhusawal covers the electric loco shed and workshop there plus Manmad and Nasik Road. Pune covers the carriage and wagon depot, the diesel loco shed and Daund. Nagpur covers Ajni, and Solapur covers Kurduwadi.

Each cluster lists its units and trades separately in the notification, with the slot count for every trade. Pick the cluster where your trade actually has seats, and where your marks stand a chance. After selection, no request to change the division or unit is entertained.

Fee, stipend and the year that follows

The fee is Rs 100, paid online through the payment gateway as part of the application. You can pay by card, net banking, UPI or wallet, and any transaction charges fall on you. SC, ST, PwBD and women candidates pay nothing. The fee is non-refundable in every case, and the notification warns against paying twice, because a duplicate payment is forfeited.

The stipend is Rs 9,600 a month, fixed under Railway Board letter RBE No. 116/2025 dated 11 November 2025, as quoted in the notification. Training runs for one year in the allotted trade. The notification provides no hostel, so you arrange your own stay. The Railways pay no daily allowance, conveyance or travelling allowance for document verification.

At verification you must bring a medical certificate in the format in the notification, signed by a government authorised doctor not below the rank of Assistant Surgeon of a Central or State hospital. Without it, no verification happens and the candidature is cancelled.

Photo and signature specs to get right first

The photograph must be a recent colour photo, 3.5 cm by 3.5 cm, taken within three months of the application, in JPG or JPEG format at 100 DPI, with the file between 20 KB and 70 KB. It needs a clear front view without cap or sunglasses. The notification says RRC can reject an application at any stage for an old or unclear photograph, so do not reuse a photo from an old form.

The signature goes up as a scanned image of the same size, 3.5 cm by 3.5 cm, in JPG or JPEG at 100 DPI, with the file between 20 KB and 30 KB. If your photo or signature file is the wrong size, the site's exam photo resizer fixes it before you upload. Keep two extra copies of the same photograph ready for document verification.

How to apply on rrccr.com

Open rrccr.com and find Notification No. RRC/CR/AA/2026. Register with your details, fill in the bio data, choose one cluster and your units in preference order, and upload your photograph and signature, your 10th mark sheet and date of birth proof, and your ITI mark sheet and trade certificate, plus a caste or disability certificate if you claim one.

Pay the fee through the gateway, submit before 2 December 2026 at 5 PM, and save the registration number the portal issues. Print the submitted application and the payment receipt and keep them safe. If the payment goes through but the form does not download, use the Verify Payment button on the portal instead of paying again.

Do not wait for the last day. The notification itself advises applying well before the closing date, because the portal slows down under last day traffic, and RRC takes no responsibility for a form that does not go through in time. For problems with the online submission, the help desk email is [email protected].

The same railway month has other openings worth a look. The RRB Isolated Categories Recruitment 2026 post on this site covers 191 posts that close on 4 December 2026, and the RRC NR Scouts and Guides Recruitment 2026 post covers the Northern Railway quota drive that opened on 6 November.

Sources & verification: Railway Recruitment Cell, Central Railway, Notification No. RRC/CR/AA/2026 dated 3 November 2026, read 6 November 2026 from the official PDF on rrccr.com. Slot total 2,861, dates, age, qualification, fee, stipend of Rs 9,600 per month under RBE No. 116/2025, merit rule, photo and signature specs and help desk email as published in that notification. Apply only through rrccr.com.