Alerts and Updates for Railway Group B LDCE (AEN / APO / AMM / AAO)

Posts in the 2026 centralised Group B CBT

These candidate counts come from a post-wise normalisation analysis of 35,188 candidates published by a specialist departmental blog in July 2026, not from an official Board release, and should be read as reported figures. The same breakdown also covers AME, AEE and ASTE. AAO did not appear in it, which is consistent with the Accounts department running its own Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 IREM ladder before gazetted Group B selection.

Dates and windows

Every date above is from the Railway Board's own calendar as reproduced by staff news portals; the Board's letter reference throughout is E(GP)2024/2/37 (3477173). Zonal application windows are separate and are published by each zonal railway's gazetted cell, not centrally, so a candidate's operative dates are the ones in their own zone's notification.

What this means for your preparation

The commonest mistake is treating this as one national exam with one notification. It is not. Thirty per cent of Group B vacancies are filled through a departmental competitive examination that is now written centrally on a Board calendar, but the vacancies, the eligibility list and the application window are still owned by each zonal railway. The other seventy per cent never goes to this exam at all.

The two streams are genuinely separate

Southern Railway's gazetted cell publishes Group B vacancies under two distinct headings: a 30 per cent Limited Departmental Competitive Examination stream, and a 70 per cent Selection stream, the latter illustrated by its 70 per cent Selection notification for the Group B post of ASTE. A Group C employee who is high in the seniority list and expects to come up through the 70 per cent Selection route is on a different track from one competing in the 30 per cent LDCE, with different paperwork and a different suitability process. Read the heading on the notification before assuming which stream a vacancy belongs to, because the same post title appears under both.

Normalisation is not cosmetic for some posts

The 2026 paper was written on two dates, 24 and 31 May, with half of each department's candidates on each date, and the Board's order states that normalisation will be applied to hold parity between the two sets. The reported post-wise gap is not uniform. For AOM and ACM the average score difference between the two sittings is reported at above thirteen marks, while for AEN it is about 1.3 and for ASTE effectively nil. For AMM, with only 476 candidates reported, the gap is reported at 2.8. If you are in a large, high-gap department, your raw score tells you less about your panel position than in a small, low-gap one, and the published raw marks should not be read as a rank.

The calendar slipped twice, so treat dates as live

The exam was calendared for 8 March 2026, moved to 12 and 19 April 2026 by Board letters of 18 and 19 February, deferred again on 26 February because zonal railways asked for relief around financial year closing and Holi special train operation, and finally written on 24 and 31 May. Each shift also moved the downstream calendar: result moved from 11 May to 22 June and panel finalisation from 8 June to 27 July. The one deadline the Board did not relax across these revisions was pre-selection training, which it insisted be completed by the end of April regardless of when the paper was written.

AAO does not sit in the same queue

The Accounts department ladder runs through the Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 IREM examinations before gazetted Group B. Appendix 3 qualifies staff for Senior Section Officer Accounts, Traffic Inspection and Stores Inspection, needs five years of continuous Accounts service or three if a graduate, and has been revised into a CBT of three objective papers of 100 multiple choice questions each, two hours per paper and 300 marks in total, plus a 200-mark subjective paper of three hours. All papers are without books, negative marking is 0.25 per wrong answer, and the subjective paper is evaluated only for those who clear all three objective papers.

Qualifying marks in the Accounts stream are two-tier

For Appendix 3 the reported requirement is 40 per cent in each individual paper, relaxed to 30 per cent for SC, ST and PwBD candidates, together with 45 per cent in aggregate across the three objective papers, relaxed to 35 per cent. The subjective paper carries its own 40 per cent floor. A September 2026 advisory to aspirants makes the point that 45 per cent is only the qualifying line and that a much higher score is what carries forward into later competitive examinations for the gazetted cadre, where the marks are compared rather than merely passed.

Common questions

When was the Railway Group B 30 per cent LDCE CBT held in 2026?

It was held on 24 May and 31 May 2026. Half the candidates from each department sat on each of the two dates, and RRB Ajmer conducted it. This followed two earlier schedules that were dropped: 8 March 2026, and then 12 and 19 April 2026. The Railway Board order of 2 April 2026 that fixed the May dates also set 22 June 2026 for the result and 27 July 2026 for panel finalisation.

Which vacancy cycle does the 2026 exam fill?

The vacancy cycle 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2026, including anticipated vacancies up to 30 June 2027. The notification for that cycle was issued on 22 December 2025 and the list of eligible candidates was to be finalised by 23 January 2026. Because anticipated vacancies are included, the panel drawn from this exam is expected to be operated over a period rather than exhausted on the day it is finalised.

Why are two candidates with the same marks ranked differently?

Because the paper was written on two dates, the Board applies normalisation to hold parity between the two sittings. A reported post-wise analysis of 35,188 candidates puts the average difference between the two sittings above thirteen marks for AOM and ACM, around nine for AME, four for AEE, roughly three for APO and AMM, and close to zero for AEN and ASTE. That analysis comes from a specialist departmental blog and not from an official Board release.

Is AAO filled through the same centralised CBT?

AAO did not appear in the published post-wise breakdown of the 2026 centralised CBT, which listed AOM, ACM, AME, AEE, APO, AMM, AEN and ASTE. The Accounts department has its own qualifying ladder, the Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 IREM examinations, before gazetted Group B. As of a September 2026 advisory, no date had been fixed for the next Appendix 3 examination, the advisory stating that this rests with the Railway Administration and the Railway Board.

Where do I find the notification for my zone?

On your own zonal railway's gazetted or personnel cell pages, not on a central portal. Southern Railway, for example, publishes each post separately: eight Group B 30 per cent LDCE notifications appeared there in August and September 2025, numbered G25042 to G25049, covering Personnel, Mechanical, Signal and Telecom, Electrical, Stores, Commercial, Operating and Engineering, each with its own opening and closing times.

What is the Appendix 3 exam pattern after the revision?

Three objective papers of 100 multiple choice questions each, two hours per paper, 300 marks in total, plus one subjective paper of 200 marks over three hours. Paper I covers establishment, provident fund, pension and NPS, labour laws, finance and book-keeping; Paper II covers stores, workshop, costing and WMS; Paper III covers traffic accounts, statistics, station accounts and inspection. All papers are without books, negative marking is 0.25 per wrong answer, and a bilingual option is available.