The system was originally a patchwork of local rail lines operated by small private companies, including the Scinde, Punjab and Delhi Railways and the Indus Steam Flotilla.
Declining passenger numbers and financial losses in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted the closure of many branch lines and small stations.
The Scinde Railway Company was established in 1855, after Karachi's potential as a seaport was first explored in the early 1850s.
Henry Bartle Frere, who was appointed Commissioner of Sindh shortly after its fall in the Battle of Miani, sought permission from Lord Dalhousie to begin a survey for a seaport.
Work on the railway began in April 1858, and Karachi and Kotri—a distance of 108 miles (174 km)—were connected by rail on 13 May 1861.
"[citation needed] It plied the Indus and Chenab Rivers from Karachi Port in the south to Makhad in the north via Jhirk and Mithankot.
The Empress Bridge, opened in 1878, carried the IVSR over the Sutlej River between Ferozepur (Firozpur, south of Lahore) and Kasur.
The opening of the Lansdowne Bridge in 1889 resolved the bottleneck, and Karachi Port was connected to the rail network.
The first section of line (from Lahore to Peshawar) was opened in 1876, and in 1883[7] the Attock Bridge over the Indus River was completed.
[8] In 1857, Scinde, Punjab and Delhi Railway chairman William Andrew suggested that rail lines to the Bolan Pass would have a strategic role in responding to a Russian threat.
During the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), a new urgency was felt to construct a rail line to Quetta for easier access to the frontier.
Work began on the line on 18 September 1879, and the first 215 kilometres (134 mi) from Ruk to Sibi was completed in January 1880.
From Sibi the line ran south-west, skirting the hills to Rindli, and originally followed the Bolan stream to its head on the plateau.
[citation needed] Although the Bolan Pass rail construction enabled the NWR route to be selected, the line was later dismantled.
In 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Government of Pakistan invited Frank D'Souza to set up the Pakistani rail system.