The project was originally proposed in 1875 during the Spanish era, and was constructed in stages between the 1880s and the 1890s as the Ferrocarril de Manila a Dagupan (lit.

Further extensions to the line reached as far as Bacnotan, La Union with passenger trains terminating at San Fernando U station in the provincial capitol.

Services peaked in the 1960s and the early 1970s until several factors such as fierce competition with the national highway system, increasing maintenance costs, natural disasters and the 1997 Asian financial crisis eventually led to the closure of the line in the late 1990s.

After 21 years of inactivity, services on the North Main Line resumed on August 1, 2018, with the reopening of Solis station in Tondo, Manila.

The system was approved by the Spanish East Indies government in 1880, but construction did not commence until 1887 due to the lack of a concession operator.

[1] Initial site inspection was presided by Lieutenant Colonel José Gago y Palomo (1849–1908), who was renowned for building fortifications and trails in Mindanao for Spanish Army General Valeriano Weyler.

[2] According to Gary Satre on an investigative article in 1999, the use of 3 feet, 6 inches gauge was made both as a cost-cutting measure and to allow tighter curves in order to suit the island's mountainous terrain.

[3] One of the main obstacles in the construction stage is crossing the Rio Grande de Pampanga, after which a box truss bridge was built.

Prior to the opening of the full length of the line to Pangasinan, José Rizal was one of the most popular commuters of the early Ferrocarril de Manila a Dagupan.

President Emilio Aguinaldo and his cabinet ministers used First Class car Z4 as their primary method of travel on the railroad, especially during their retreat to northern Luzon.

[13] By 1909, the Manila Railroad took control of the system, although Horace L. Higgins still leads as its general manager in the country and the Annual Report was still prepared with British conventions.

[15] Construction for the Aringay–Baguio line started in 1914 but was never finished and the tunnel leading to the city was never completed, citing British involvement in World War I as the reason.

[19] Although the line was damaged after the First Philippines campaign during World War II, the Japanese briefly extended it to Sudipen near the La Union–Ilocos Sur border, some 41.6 kilometers (25.8 miles) north of San Fernando.

[20] Additionally, the Aringay–Tuba section of the Baguio line was closed and the 300 class rack tank locomotives used for this service were scrapped in 1945.

While operations were smaller in scale to its southern counterpart, the North Main Line was still a popular means of travel leading out of Metro Manila.

The Cagayan Valley extension was never fully realized and PNR trains only terminated at San Jose, Nueva Ecija.

[26] Since then, the Ramos administration took advantage of the recently closed North Main Line to revitalize plans to electrify the commuter rail service in Metro Manila.

It would then be extended eastward towards eastern Rizal province and northern Quezon, both more rural than the areas once plied by the two aforementioned lines.

[31] While plans continued under the term of President Joseph Estrada with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) by as late as 1999, it never materialized and was not considered to be built by future administrations.

Some of the lines were eventually closed, and their reconstruction were later deemed unnecessary to restore because of existing rapid transit infrastructure from other systems.

Such services were intended to connect Tutuban and Manila within 6 hours using newly-refurbished locomotives that burn fuel oil instead of coal.

The North section of the North–South Commuter Railway, also known as NSCR North and PNR Clark, is a 91 km (57 mi) section that shall rebuild the historic commuter services to Malolos in Bulacan, as well as San Fernando and Angeles City in Pampanga before terminating at Clark International Airport.

[54] Development started after the old Northrail project was cancelled when the Department of Transportation and Communications attempted to reactivate the construction of a new electrified commuter rail line.

Canadian firm CPCS Transcom Limited was commissioned to conduct a feasibility study for a Malolos–Los Baños commuter line as part of a larger effort to reform Metro Manila's public transport system.

[60] The contract for the construction of NSCR North 1 was awarded to the Filipino-Japanese consortium of DMCI Holdings and Taisei Corporation on May 21, 2019.

[61][62] The contract for the construction of the railway viaduct from Tutuban to Bocaue was awarded in December 2020 to Swiss firm VSL International, a subsidiary of French conglomerate Bouygues.

The line proper will continue for at least 92 km (57 mi) northeast towards Nueva Ecija, ending at the city of Cabanatuan.

[75] PNR general manager Junn Magno stated on an interview with local TV show Motoring Today on February 7, 2021, that the agency is still developing proposals for the line.

Once completed, it will shorten travel times between job centers in Metro Manila and commuter towns in eastern Bulacan within 55 to 60 minutes.

[3] Contemporary efforts to reviving the North Main Line were first announced in 2017 during a DOTr's presentation to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.