The Palatine Northern Railways Company – abbreviated to Palatine Northern Railway - was founded on 17 April 1866 as the last of the three major private railway companies in the Bavarian province of the Palatinate. From the outset it left the management and running of its railways to the Palatine Ludwigsbahn. Because the Ludwigsbahn company and the Palatine Maximilian Railway had already built their railway networks in central and southern Palatinate, the Palatine Northern Railway was only left with the region north of the line Ludwigshafen–Kaiserslautern–Homburg for its area of operations. It began working on 22 September 1868 with the opening of the 29 km long Landstuhl–Kusel railway: Landstuhl–Glan-Münchweiler–Altenglan–Kusel. On 1 January 1870 as it agreed to merge with the other two Palatine railway organisations into the managerial and operating company of the United Palatine Railways, it also took over the entire shareholding of the Neustadt–Dürkheim Railway Company, whose railway line, opened in 1865, had been run by the Palatine Ludwigsbahn to that point in time. The construction of the most important northern railway lines was then started:
The Donnersberg Railway—Langmeil–Marnheim–Kirchheimbolanden–Alzey —appeared in 1873/74 and included the Kaiserslautern–Eselsfürth–Enkenbach section, which joined it on 15 May 1875.
The Lauter Valley Railway —Kaiserslautern–Wolfstein–Lauterecken-Grumbach —was extended in 1896/97 in the Glan valley by 21 km from Meisenheim to Odernheim–Staudernheim and on 1 May 1904 on the right bank of the Nahe river from Odernheim to Bad Münster am Stein.
Finally on 1 May 1904 the opening of the Homburg–Glan-Münchweiler and Altenglan–Offenbach-Hundheim–Lauterecken-Grumbach sections of the Glan Valley Railway enabled through trains to run between Mainz and Saarbrücken, something which was also desirable for military reasons.
