A royal ordnance, dated 10 September 1845, granted the CF du Nord a concession to build a railway from Paris to Valenciennes and Lille, with branch lines to
Dunkirk and
Calais, and lines from
Creil to
Saint-Quentin and
Fampoux to
Hazebrouck. From the
Gare du Nord, the station the company built in Paris, the
Paris–Lille railway led north towards Belgium, connecting to
Amiens,
Douai and
Lille in 1846, with a branch line from Douai to
Valenciennes. The new line made it possible to travel by train from Paris to
Brussels and further. The network was rapidly expanded in the following years:
Competition The potential for expansion of the CF du Nord territory was limited by other companies: the
Chemins de fer de l'Ouest to its south-west, and the
Chemins de fer de l'Est to its east. By opening a line from Paris to
Hirson via Soissons and
Laon from 1860 to 1871, the CF du Nord protected its eastern border against CF de l'Est expansion. The concession for the line from Creil to Beauvais, owned by CF de l'Est predecessor
Chemins de fer des Ardennes, was exchanged for the Nord's concession for Laon–Reims in 1855. In 1937, the CF du Nord was nationalised, as were the other main railway companies, to become part of the
Société nationale des chemins de fer français (SNCF). ==Activity==