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The origins of the North Station date back to 1852, when permission for its construction was granted to the Zaragoza to Barcelona Railway Company.
The original terminal, much more modest than the current one, consisted of two buildings that are still preserved. One was the one for travelers, which had its main façade on Vilanova Avenue, what is today the Parc de l’Estació del Nord.
The other building, which was intended for freight traffic, had its entrance on the old Ribes road, at that time one of the main access routes to the city of Barcelona.
With the concession of the line between Barcelona and Zaragoza, to distribute the departure and arrival of passengers to the city, it was decided to locate the new terminal station in the old Horts de Sant Pere, land considered a military zone, because they were among what It had been Fort Pienc and the Ciutadella.
The construction of the station was carried out by engineer Pere Andrés Puigdollers and began in 1861. It was inaugurated on May 21, 1862.
In 1847, Puigdollers carried out the Canal del Urgell project together with Constantino de Ardanaz. In March 1854 he was the signatory of the plans for the Monclà tunnel, more than four kilometers long, and, in 1855, he made the plans for the port of Barcelona.
The original station was built with a much more modest line than the one restored in 1910 by the Northern Iron Roads Company.
In 1878 the Zaragoza to Pamplona and Barcelona Railway Company was absorbed by the Northern Spanish Iron Roads Company, so the terminal became known as Barcelona North. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the site underwent several renovations.
Between 1910 and 1915, it was expanded and deeply remodeled according to a project by the architect Demetri Ribes i Marco with a modernist design.
Demetri Ribes designed the union of the two parallel bodies that formed the primitive old station linked by a central body with a façade on Naples Street, building a new main lobby closed by a large glass curtain wall.
The façade of this new body rested on a Montjuïc stone plinth, flanked by two independent two-story bodies. These side buildings were made with a stucco coating with pilasters topped with shields crowned with the four bars and the cross of Sant Jordi.
The windows of the upper floors had been built with sills and lintels decorated with vegetal reliefs, topped with garlands of laurel leaves complemented by emblems of the company, which were the five-pointed stars and with the word "North".
In the central body, the façade was made with iron ornamentation based on segmental arches and stepped cornices in the center of which stood a large shield of Spain with the Golden Fleece.
The central door is crowned by a clock and inside a new lobby gave way to a large number of ticket offices for issuing tickets.
In 1941, the Compañía de los Hierro del Norte de España was nationalized and its network was integrated into the new National Network of Spanish Railways, which led to a sign being placed in the center of the façade with the inscription " Renfe".
In 1972, the Ministry of Public Works, in its intention to solve the problem that train circulation represented in that area of the city, decided to close the station, moving all the lines to the Francia Station, then called Barcelona-Término.
On September 24, 1972 at eleven at night the last train from Madrid entered, closing the railway history of this station forever.
