The Manila Railroad Company (MRR) was a Filipino state-owned enterprise responsible for the management and operation of rail transport in the island of Luzon.

It also had various types of rolling stock from the early tank locomotives and boxcars of the 1890s to the diesel-electric GE Universal Series and Japanese-built steel-bodied railcars of the 1950s.

It directed the Office of the Inspector of Public Works of the Philippines to submit a layout for future railroads in Luzon, the largest island in the Spanish East Indies.

Public works chief Eduardo Lopez Navarro then submitted the General Plan for Railroads in the Island of Luzon on August 6 which was approved by the King Alfonso later that month.

[1] The sole bidder was led by Englishman Edmund Hett Sykes' Manila Railway Company, Limited, known to the Spanish as Don Edmundo.

[3] However, Palomo refused and instead joined the expeditionary forces of Governors-General Valeriano Weyler and Ramon Blanco against the Moro people, where he served as an engineer in what is now Tukuran, Zamboanga del Sur.

Most notably, the Manila Railway was the primary route of escape for then-president Emilio Aguinaldo and his cabinet from the advancing American forces towards Central Luzon.

[8] Despite being initially in Filipino hands, the American occupation of the Manila Railway and the Tranvía became instrumental in accelerating the decline of the First Philippine Republic and eventual capture of Aguinaldo in Isabela.

[9] The negative sentiment of foreign journalists regarding the rolling stock urged the Manila Railway to order more proper railcars.

[11] The Insular Government of the Philippine Islands has proposed to acquire the Manila Railroad system in the midst of World War I.

[19] Paez's term with the Manila Railroad then ended on December 31, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Army took control of the Philippines in the midst of World War II.

After Paez stepped down from his post as general manager, the Japanese Railway Corps took control of the Manila Railroad on January 1, 1942.

[21] The most notable event during its brief takeover was its involvement during the Bataan Death March to transfer prisoners of war from San Fernando, Pampanga to Capas, Tarlac in April of that year.

[30] The Japanese then extended Main Line North from San Fernando, La Union to Sudipen near the border with Ilocos Sur.

[32] In 1945, amidst the Second Philippines Campaign, the Manila Railroad became the Luzon Military Railway under the United States Army.

Around that same year, the Manila Railroad 300 class rack locomotives used on the Aringay line were scrapped during the Americans' northward advance.

At the same time, Sergio Bayan filled the previously vacant spot of general manager and finished Paez's 1941 report.

These were gondola cars and flatcars with trapal tents placed on top to provide cover akin to reused boxcars during the early days of the Manila Railway.

[37] That same year, then-Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay was briefly appointed by Elpidio Quirino to the position of general manager.

The following year, general manager Salvador Villa started the MRR dieselization program as previously proposed by De Leuw.

Carlos P. Garcia succeeded Magsaysay as the president in March 1957 after the latter died in a plane crash and continued the Cagayan Valley line.

A book was published which also contains the intentions to expand the existing MRR network to Mindanao and Eastern Visayas with ferries connecting all of them.

[41] A year later on July 9 to 14, King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit of Thailand visited the Philippines and traveled to Bauang, La Union on a 2000 class-hauled royal train operated by the MRR.

[42] Not long after the two monarchs' visits to the country and amidst a looming financial crisis caused by Garcia's tight currency controls and the Filipino First policy, the Manila Railroad became the present-day Philippine National Railways by the virtue of Republic Act 4156 on June 20, 1964.

[44] Despite after almost 150 years since the first plans were submitted, the original proposed network for the Manila Railroad in Luzon never managed to reach its full extent and was never expanded from there.

[58] The ownership of the hotel was eventually transferred to the Government Services Insurance System (GSIS) on January 28, 1975 by virtue of Presidential Decree No.

[44] The Manila Railroad is one of the oldest continuous rail operators in Asia through its successor, the Philippine National Railways.

However, the early days of the Manila Railway era lagged considerably in terms of rail technology compared to countries like Japan, India or the West.

[63][64] By the 1920s, the Manila Railroad became involved in the construction and assembly of their own rolling stock with designs from Metropolitan, American Car and Foundry, among others.

The MRR's Caloocan Workshops built the Rail Motor Car (RMC) class starting in 1929 to replace the remaining tank locomotives on local services.