[1] Officially notified as a new railway zone on 14 April 1952, its origin goes back to 3 March 1859.

Meerut Cantt railway station was established by British India government around 1865 after the sepoy mutiny of 1857.

[citation needed] In 1866, through trains started running on the East Indian Railway Company's Howrah–Delhi line.

All the metre-gauge trains starting from (and terminating at) Delhi to Rewari, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat passed through this station.

In 1876, metre-gauge track from Delhi to Rewari and further to Ajmer was laid in 1873 by Rajputana State Railway.

[9] On 9 March 1885, the first train ran from Jodhpur Junction railway station to Luni.

[6] The line passed through Muktasar and Fazilka tehsils and provided direct connection through Samma Satta (now in Pakistan) to Karachi.

[14] In 1900, the present building of the Delhi Junction railway station was built with 2 platforms and opened for public in 1903.

East Indian Railway Company shifted the line along the Yamuna river and opened the new track in 1924.

The government's plans to have the new station built inside the Central Park of Connaught Place was rejected by the Railways as it found the idea impractical.

[23] In 1927–28, New Delhi Capital Works project involving construction of 4.79 miles (7.71 km) of new lines was completed.

The Viceroy and royal retinue entered the city through the new railway station during the inauguration of New Delhi in 1931.

New structures were added to the railway station later and the original building served as the parcel office for many years.

[35] The city of Delhi heavily depends on the Rail transport to cater for the increasing load of passengers to their destinations.

Also, Delhi is the connecting station for the cities in the Northern states Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

The East-bound trains from Delhi to the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand West Bengal and other North-eastern states had to cross the bridge over River Yamuna as all the three stations are located on the other side of the river.

Thus, the area of Anand Vihar was selected in the trans-Yamuna region to construct a mega-railway terminal.

[39] In May 2013, a tender was awarded to enable free Wi-Fi connectivity at the New Delhi railway station, at an approximate cost of ₹8 million (US$92,000) and service became functional later in the year.

[40][41] By September 2006, the second metre-gauge track from Sarai Rohilla to Rewari was also converted to broad gauge and all metre-gauge trains stopped operating between Rewari and Sarai Rohilla (though the converted track was opened for public use only in October 2007).

The solar power project to be set up under public–private partnership will be executed on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis.

In December 2017, National Capital Region Transport Corporation signed agreements with Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Spain's state owned company) and Société nationale des chemins de fer français (France's state owned company) to cooperate on the development of rapid rail smart projects, including Delhi–Meerut Smart Line, Delhi–Panipat Smart Line and Delhi–Alwar Smart Line have been prioritised for implementation in the first phase of NCR RRTS where these three lines will operate from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi.

In 2017 December, National Capital Region Transport Corporation signed agreements with Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Spain's state owned company) and Société nationale des chemins de fer français (France's state owned company) to cooperate on the development of rapid rail smart projects, including Delhi–Meerut Smart Line, Delhi–Panipat Smart Line and Delhi–Alwar Smart Line have been prioritised for implementation in the first phase of NCR RRTS where these three lines will operate from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi.

₹32,598 crore Delhi–Ghaziabad–Meerut RRTS will be implemented first, ground clearance is underway in December 2017, construction will commence by June 2018 and completed by 2024, for which pre-construction activities including geo-technical investigations, detailed design, utility-shifting planning and traffic diversion planning are in progress.

With these devices, train pilots precisely know in advance, about the location of signals, level-crossing gates and other such approaching markers.

Northern Railways previously consisted of eight divisional zones: Allahabad, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Delhi, Moradabad, Ferozpur, Ambala, and Lucknow, spanning most of North India.

All workshops, diesel sheds and air brake freight departments are ISO 9000 certified.

The Public Private Partnership to install rooftop solar project was signed in late 2016.