The Mönchengladbach–Stolberg railway was opened by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company and built in sections between 1870 and 1875.

The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company, also referred to as the Berg-Mark Railway Company or, more rarely, as the Bergisch-Markische Railway Company, was a German railway company that together with the Cologne-Minden Railway and the Rhenish Railway Company was one of the three (nominally) private railway companies that in the mid-19th century built the first railways in the Ruhr and large parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia. Its name refers to Bergisches Land and the County of Mark.