An 1890 act of the Royal Hungarian Government authorised the building of the main station and maintenance shop in Zagreb.

[3] Construction of the 186.5 m (612 ft) long neoclassical style station building began in 1891[4] and was overseen by Hungarian architect Ferenc Pfaff.

[6] Directly in front of the main railway station, there is a stop for Zagreb tram lines 2, 4, 6, 9 and 13.

With lines 2 and 6 you can reach the Bus station, which is three stops away and from which many buses travel to larger and smaller cities in Croatia and neighboring countries.

On 30 August 1974, the station was the site of the deadliest train accident in Yugoslavia at the time, with 153 people dead.