The Arrival of Railways: 1864 and the East Indian Railway

Delhi's connection to the Indian railway network came through the East Indian Railway Company (EIR), one of the two great trunk railway companies of British India. The EIR had been pushing its main line westward from Howrah (Calcutta) since the 1850s, and by 1864 it had extended its tracks to Delhi, making the Delhi–Ambala line operational. This single event transformed Delhi from a city dependent on Mughal-era roads and river transport into a major node in a continental rail grid that spanned the subcontinent. Goods — cotton, grain, indigo — could now move efficiently to the ports of Calcutta, and British troops could be rapidly deployed across northern India in a matter of days rather than weeks.

The strategic thinking behind extending the railway to Delhi was rooted in the trauma of the 1857 rebellion. The British had concluded that rapid troop movements were essential to maintaining imperial control, and the railway offered an unprecedented tool for projecting military power. Delhi, as the former seat of Mughal power and one of the most symbolically significant cities in the subcontinent, was a natural priority. Within a few years of the 1864 opening, branch lines began to radiate outward from Delhi toward Mathura, Ambala, and Rewari, cementing the city's role as a railway crossroads.

Old Delhi Station (Delhi Junction): A Heritage Landmark

Delhi Junction — station code DLI, commonly known as Old Delhi Station — is one of the oldest and most historically significant railway stations in northern India. The station was established near Chandni Chowk, in the heart of the old walled city, deliberately positioned to capture the heavy passenger and freight traffic generated by the densely populated commercial lanes of Mughal Delhi. The current heritage station building, with its distinctive red-brick facade and colonial-era architectural details, dates to 1903 and was constructed as part of a broader programme of upgrading major stations across British India ahead of the grand Delhi Durbar of that year.

The station has witnessed some of the most consequential moments in Indian history: the departure of troops during the two World Wars, the chaos and tragedy of Partition in 1947 when millions crossed the new international border and crowded onto trains in desperate journeys, and the festive arrivals of prime ministers and visiting dignitaries in the decades after independence. Today, Old Delhi Station handles over 190 trains per day and serves as an interchange point between Northern Railway and other zones. Its location near the spice markets of Khari Baoli, the textile lanes of Chandni Chowk, and the grand Jama Masjid makes it the preferred station for millions of traders, pilgrims, and tourists who pour into the old city each day. Heritage enthusiasts visit the station not just to travel but to admire the Victorian-era architecture preserved in the middle of one of the world's most chaotic and vibrant railway termini.

New Delhi Station and the Capital's Railway Expansion

When the British government announced in 1911 that the imperial capital would shift from Calcutta to Delhi, the city's importance as a railway hub increased dramatically. The new capital — christened New Delhi — demanded a grander railway station commensurate with its status as the seat of government for the entire Indian empire. New Delhi Railway Station (station code NDLS) was constructed and opened in 1926, designed to serve both the sprawling new administrative districts laid out by architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and the growing residential areas of the colonial capital.

New Delhi Station quickly grew into one of the busiest railway stations in Asia. It sits at the junction of major trunk lines heading east toward Allahabad and Kolkata, north toward Ambala and Amritsar, and south-west toward Jaipur and Mumbai. Today, NDLS handles over 500,000 passengers daily, placing it among the top five busiest railway stations in all of India. The station operates on 16 platforms, and on festival days — Diwali, Holi, Eid — the passenger count surges dramatically as millions travel home across the length and breadth of the country. A major station redevelopment project is currently under way to transform NDLS into a world-class multimodal transit hub, integrating rail, metro, bus, and taxi connectivity in a single seamlessly connected complex.

Railway Zones Serving Delhi: Northern Railway and Beyond

Three major railway zones serve the National Capital Territory of Delhi, reflecting the city's position as the premier rail junction of India. The Northern Railway, headquartered at Baroda House in New Delhi, is the largest of these zones by route length and administers the key main lines passing through Delhi toward Ambala, Moradabad, Mathura, and Bikaner. Northern Railway was formally constituted in 1952 from the former East Indian Railway and Punjab Northern State Railway networks, and its Delhi Division is among the highest-revenue divisions in the entire Indian Railways system.

The North Central Railway (NCR), headquartered at Allahabad (Prayagraj), covers the lines from Delhi toward Agra and Jhansi — the main artery of both the Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Chennai trunk routes. The North Western Railway (NWR), headquartered at Jaipur, handles trains toward Rajasthan and Gujarat. This multi-zone arrangement means that operational decisions in Delhi have cascading effects across the national network, and conversely, that Delhi benefits from the combined infrastructure investments of three separate zones focused on the same converging network.

Major Stations: Hazrat Nizamuddin, Anand Vihar Terminal, and Sarai Rohilla

Beyond Old Delhi and New Delhi, the capital has developed several additional major terminals over the decades to distribute traffic and reduce chronic congestion. Hazrat Nizamuddin Station (NZM), located in south Delhi near the revered Sufi shrine of the same name, was developed through the 1970s and 1980s as a key terminal for trains heading south and east. Several of India's most prestigious express trains — the Rajdhani to Bhopal, the Duronto to Chennai, the August Kranti Rajdhani to Mumbai — originate or terminate at NZM rather than at the perpetually crowded NDLS, providing a smoother boarding experience for passengers from south and central Delhi.

Anand Vihar Terminal (ANVT) in east Delhi was developed to serve the rapidly growing residential colonies of Ghaziabad, Noida, and east Delhi, as well as to handle the enormous traffic of trains heading into Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It has grown into one of the busiest suburban terminals in the country and is directly connected to the Delhi Metro's Blue Line, making the interchange between long-distance rail and urban mass transit seamless. Sarai Rohilla in west Delhi serves as both a coaching depot and a terminal station, particularly for trains toward Rajasthan and Haryana. Delhi Cantonment, Tilak Bridge, and Patel Nagar are among the smaller stations serving the suburban rail network within the capital.

The Delhi Ring Railway: Connecting the Capital's Stations

One of the most ambitious railway infrastructure projects ever undertaken for the capital was the Delhi Ring Railway, inaugurated in 1975. The Ring Railway is a circular rail loop that connects Old Delhi, New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Sarai Rohilla, Delhi Cantonment, and several intermediate stations in a continuous circuit, allowing trains to traverse the Delhi network without reversing direction at a terminal. This was particularly valuable for goods trains, which could bypass the congested inner stations entirely, and for through-express passengers who needed to travel between different parts of Delhi without occupying prime platform space at New Delhi or Old Delhi.

The Ring Railway also enabled through-running of many long-distance expresses: a train arriving from Howrah at Hazrat Nizamuddin could proceed around the ring to Sarai Rohilla and then onward to Rajasthan without ever occupying a platform at New Delhi. This flexibility significantly increased the capacity of the Delhi terminal system during the 1970s and 1980s when passenger volumes were growing rapidly. Suburban passenger services on the Ring Railway have faced competition from the Delhi Metro in later decades, but the ring remains operationally vital for freight movements and through-express operations, and periodic infrastructure upgrades continue to be undertaken.

Premier Trains: Rajdhani, Shatabdi, and Vande Bharat Express

Delhi is the originating point for many of India's most iconic express trains. The Rajdhani Express concept was born in 1969 when the Howrah Rajdhani Express — the first fully air-conditioned express train in India — began running between New Delhi and Howrah. The name "Rajdhani" translates to "capital city," and the concept was to provide the fastest and most comfortable link between Delhi and the various state capitals. Over the decades, Rajdhani Expresses were introduced to Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Patna, Ranchi, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, and many other cities, all operating from New Delhi or Hazrat Nizamuddin. The Rajdhani remains the gold standard of Indian Railways express travel.

The Shatabdi Express, introduced in 1988 to mark a railway centenary milestone, was designed as a same-day return service for business travellers and tourists on shorter routes. The first Shatabdi ran from New Delhi to Jhansi. Today, Shatabdi trains operate from New Delhi to Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Agra, Bhopal, and several other cities, typically completing the round journey within a single day. In 2019, Indian Railways introduced the Vande Bharat Express — a semi-high-speed, self-propelled electric multiple-unit train designed and manufactured entirely in India at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai. The inaugural run of Vande Bharat (then known as Train 18) was from New Delhi to Varanasi, cutting the journey time by several hours. Vande Bharat services from New Delhi have since expanded to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra, Ambala, Bhopal, Ajmer, and other destinations, marking a new era of domestic rail manufacturing capability.

The National Rail Museum: Preserving India's Railway Heritage

One of Delhi's most treasured cultural institutions is the National Rail Museum, located in the Chanakyapuri diplomatic enclave of New Delhi. The museum was inaugurated on February 1, 1977, and occupies over 11 acres of landscaped grounds containing both indoor galleries and an extensive outdoor collection. It is a living archive of Indian railway history, housing more than 100 exhibits including full-size locomotives from the steam era, historic carriages, ceremonial saloons, maintenance cranes, and track-laying equipment spanning over 150 years of railway history.

The undisputed star of the collection is the Fairy Queen, a steam locomotive built in 1855 by Kitson, Thompson and Hewitson of Leeds, England. The Fairy Queen holds the Guinness World Record as the world's oldest working steam locomotive and is still occasionally steamed for heritage excursion runs between Delhi and Alwar in Rajasthan. Other extraordinary exhibits include the elaborately decorated personal saloons of erstwhile princely rulers — private railway carriages commissioned by the Maharajas of Mysore, Baroda, Patiala, and other states, fitted with period furniture, stained glass, and ornate woodwork — as well as the viceregal saloon used by the British Governors-General of India. The museum's indoor galleries trace the complete history of Indian Railways from its earliest experimental days to the modern era, making it an essential destination for railway enthusiasts, school groups, and inquisitive visitors from around the world.

Delhi–Howrah and Delhi–Mumbai: Two of the World's Busiest Rail Corridors

Two of the busiest railway corridors on the planet pass through Delhi. The Delhi–Howrah corridor (approximately 1,450 km) connects the national capital to the largest city of eastern India and carries an extraordinary density of passenger and freight trains daily. The route passes through the major cities of Kanpur, Allahabad (Prayagraj), Varanasi, and Patna, serving hundreds of millions of people living along the Gangetic plain. The Delhi–Mumbai corridor (approximately 1,384 km) is equally critical, linking Delhi to India's financial capital via Kota, Vadodara, and Surat. Together these two corridors form the backbone of Indian Railways' passenger network and account for a disproportionate share of the entire system's revenue.

To address chronic congestion on these routes, Indian Railways has launched the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) project — one of the largest infrastructure investments in Indian history. The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor runs from Ludhiana in Punjab through Delhi to Sonnagar in Jharkhand, a total of approximately 1,800 km, and carries freight in high-speed, double-stacked container trains on tracks entirely separate from the passenger network. The Western DFC runs from Dadri near Delhi to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) near Mumbai. By removing freight traffic from the main lines, the DFCs dramatically increase the capacity available for passenger trains and create the headroom needed for speed upgrades on both the trunk corridors.

Delhi Metro and Suburban Rail: Urban Mobility Transformed

No account of railways in Delhi is complete without the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). Phase 1 of the Delhi Metro was inaugurated on December 24, 2002, when the first stretch between Shahdara and Tis Hazari opened to the public. The network has since expanded at a pace few transit systems anywhere in the world have matched. By the mid-2020s, Delhi Metro operates over 390 kilometres of track across 9 colour-coded lines and serves well over 300 stations, making it the largest metro network in India and among the largest in Asia. The Metro has been instrumental in reducing road congestion in one of the world's most populous urban agglomerations and has become a model for rapid transit development in cities across India, inspiring the construction or expansion of Metro networks in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Lucknow, and beyond.

Indian Railways also operates an electrified suburban rail network in Delhi, connecting the city to Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, and other satellite cities in the National Capital Region. As Delhi continues to expand outward — with new townships being developed in Greater Noida, Kundli, and Manesar — the integration of long-distance rail, suburban rail, and Metro services becomes increasingly important to regional mobility. Heritage railway enthusiasts also find Delhi a rewarding destination: guided heritage walks around Old Delhi Station, visits to the National Rail Museum, and the occasional steam excursion hauled by the Fairy Queen offer a tangible connection to the 160-year history of railways in India's capital.

Book Unreserved Tickets from Delhi Stations

Planning to travel by train from Delhi? You can book unreserved tickets from any station instantly using the RailOne app (formerly the UTS app). Visit UTS QR SCAN, search for your departure station — whether it is New Delhi (NDLS), Old Delhi (DLI), Hazrat Nizamuddin (NZM), Anand Vihar Terminal (ANVT), Sarai Rohilla, or any other Delhi station — open its platform QR code page, and scan it using the RailOne app. Your ticket is booked in seconds, no queue required. Skip the long lines at the booking counter and enjoy a seamless, paperless travel experience on Indian Railways.