page_title: Northern Railway zone
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Northern Railway zone / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Delhi Junction
context_page_description: The Northern Railway is one of the 18 Railway zones of India and the northernmost zone of the Indian Railways. Its headquarter is New Delhi Baroda House near India Gate.
context_section_description: Officially notified as a new railway zone on 14 April 1952, its origin goes back to 3 March 1859.
  On 14 April 1952, the Northern Railway zone was created by merging Jodhpur Railway, Bikaner Railway, Eastern Punjab Railway and three divisions of the East Indian Railway north-west of Mughalsarai (Uttar Pradesh).
  On 3 March 1859, Allahabad-Kanpur, the first passenger railway line in North India was opened, which falls under Northern Railway zone.
  In 1864, a broad gauge track from Calcutta to Delhi was laid.
  In 1864, the railway line between Old Delhi and Meerut City railway station was constructed. Meerut Cantt railway station was established by British India government around 1865 after the sepoy mutiny of 1857.
  In 1866, through trains started running on the East Indian Railway Company’s Howrah-Delhi line.
  In 1870, the Sind, Punjab and Delhi railway completed the 483 km (300 mi) long Amritsar - Ambala - Jagadhri- Saharanpur - Ghaziabad line connecting Multan (now in Pakistan) with Delhi.
  In 1872, Sarai Rohilla railway station was established when the metre gauge railway line from Delhi to Jaipur and Ajmer was being laid. It was a small station just outside Delhi as Delhi was confined to walled city then. All the metre gauge trains starting from (and terminating at) Delhi to Rewari, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat passed through this station. The track from Delhi to Sarai Rohilla was double. The single track from Sarai Rohilla to Rewari was doubled up to Rewari, from where single tracks diverged in five directions.
  In 1876, metre gauge track from Delhi to Rewari and further to Ajmer was laid in 1873 by Rajputana State Railway.
  In 1879, the Sind, Punjab and Delhi railway completed the 483-kilometre-long (300 mi) Amritsar–Ambala–Saharanpur–Ghaziabad line connecting Multan (now in Pakistan) with Delhi.
  In 1884, the Rajputana-Malwa Railway extended the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) wide metre gauge Delhi-Rewari line to Bathinda. The Bathinda-Rewari metre gauge line was converted to 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) wide broad gauge in 1994.
  On 9 March 1885, the first train ran from Jodhpur Junction railway station to Luni. The New Jodhpur Railway was later combined with Bikaner Railway to form Jodhpur-Bikaner Railway in 1889. A Railway line was completed between Jodhpur and Bikaner in 1891. Later in 1900, it combined with Jodhpur-Hyderabad Railway (some part of this railway is in Pakistan) leading to connection with Hyderabad of Sindh Province. Later in 1924 Jodhpur and Bikaner Railways worked as independent Railways. After Independence, a part of Jodhpur Railway went to West Pakistan.
  In 1891, the Delhi-Panipat-Ambala-Kalka line was opened.
  In 1891, the Delhi-Panipat-Ambala-Kalka line was opened The 610 mm (2 ft) wide narrow gauge Kalka-Shimla Railway was constructed by Delhi-Panipat-Ambala-Kalka Railway Company and opened for traffic in 1903. In 1905 the line was regauged to 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) wide narrow gauge.
  In 1897, the Southern Punjab Railway Co. opened the Delhi-Bhatinda-Samasatta line in 1897. The line passed through Muktasar and Fazilka tehsils and provided direct connection through Samma Satta (now in Pakistan) to Karachi.
  In 1900, the present building of the Delhi Junction railway station was built with 2 platforms and opened for public in 1903.
  In 1900, the Ghaziabad-Moradabad link was established by Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway.
  In 1901-02, the metre gauge Jodhpur-Bikaner line was extended to Bathinda by Jodhpur-Bikaner Railway. It was subsequently converted to broad gauge.
  In 1904 the Agra-Delhi line was opened. Six railway lines then entered Delhi. East Indian Railway, North-Western Railway, and Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway entered from Ghaziabad crossing the Yamuna river. Delhi - Sonipat Junction railway station - Panipat - Ambala Cantonment - Kalka Railway ran northwards from Delhi, and the Rajputana-Malwa Railway traversed the Delhi district for a short distance in the direction of Gurgaon and Rewari Junction. Delhi Railway Station was built in red stone to give the effect of nearby historic Red Fort. The station building had six
caption: Old Delhi Junction
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "262", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3913", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "[0, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "480", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "640"}