PalQ

A recent NYTimes article says that Berlin's new Central Station, which is due to open this summer, would be the first new central train station to be built in Europe in about a century - i've been thinking about that and question its accuracy - i can't think of any new stations, in new locations in the city center however. I know Madrid and Barcelona have new stations but well out of the town center - Rome's Termini and Florence and Venice also will built during Mussolini era but probably replacing old ones on the same site. So if anyone can think of a true central station, built on a new site and in the town center please mention it. Vienna is planning a new one soon but i think it's really an expansion of the present SudBahnhof.
Any possibles?

Neopolitan

I guess I don't quite get the statement. Isn't it on the site of the old Lehrter (sp?) station. There are a number of train stations in Europe that were bombed or otherwise fully destroyed and new ones built in their place. Why is this one different than those, unless it's just that it took longer to replace it?

CotswoldScouser

Milton Keynes?

J62

I must admit it's a pretty cool bldg they put up. I was lounging on the lawn in front of the Reichstag last fall when they lowered the massive cross beams over the glass roof. Didn't know at the time what they were doing but pretty cool sight.

Don't know anything about it being the 1st new central station.

PatrickLondon

From my recollection of the plans for the new Lehterstr. station when I was there a long time ago now, the difference is that it will be a truly central station. Berlin, like London and Paris, had several terminus stations for different lines from different parts of the country. As I understand it, the new station brings them all into the one interchange.

http://www.hbf-berlin.de/site/berlin.../en/start.html

PalQ

It may also be Europe's fanciest train station - the new station is called both the "Main Station" (Hauptbahnhof) and as Patrick says "Lehrter Bahnhof" on the spot of the old Lehrter Station that was so damaged in WWII it was demolished in 1958 (a tiny S-Bahn station of that name persisted until now)
anyway the two parts J62 had the chance to see being lowered is acutally a 500-foot bridge that runs across the station to connect two tower blocks being built just to the north and south of the station.
...arched glass roof 150 feet above the platforms and longer than three football fields
...750,000 square feet
...54 escalators
...43 round glass elevators
The station currently is in a dead area - nothing around it in terms of shops, etc. but there is of course a large station shopping mall
...a long new tunnel burrows under the Tiergarten park
...850 million $ to build
... the Spree River had to be diverted to allow its building
...to be open in time for World Cup Football in June 2006

PalQ

CotswoldScouser: Yes Milton Keynes qualifies though I was thinking more in terms of big cities that typically have several train stations in addition to a main one - still looking for those cows along the tracks when i pass thru Milton Keynes - haven't spotted them yet!

CotswoldScouser

The Milton Keynes cows are along its roads. There aren't any alongside the railway.

Milton Keynes has several railway stations (such as Bletchley, for example). And, unlike some of these jumped up nouvelle cities, it was a national centre of pilgrimage (or rather its 14th C chapel of Our Lady of Bradwell, whose paintings are still visible, was) when Berlin was just a gleam in some early Prussian tinpot dictator's eye.

ira

Hi Pal,

>...if anyone can think of a true central station,...

The only one I can think of is Grand Central Station, built in 1871.

Is there any European city that has, or had, a single central terminus?

Neopolitan

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking, ira. There has also been Penn Station for many years -- Grand Central isn't the only train station in the middle of New York. Isn't that the same as with many European cities?

hopscotch

Ouch, CotswoldScouser.

Prussian tinpot dictator? Who rulled Britainica in those days, an enlightened humanitarian liberal?

twk

If Patrick is right about what they mean by "central station," they mean what was typically labeled a "Union" station here in the States. And, as pointed out, Grand Central was not a union station--it was the terminal for the New York Central. It's chief competitor, the Pennsylvania Railway, had it's own grand station (unfortunately, lost to the wrecking ball) across Midtown.

LA, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Houston, and many other US cities had union stations where one terminal served all passenger rail lines that entered the city.

rex

Not sure what is the threshold for being considereda a "major city", but... I wonder when the Cologne Hauptbahnhof was built - - but maybe it, too, is just an example of they built a newer bigger, better station on top of what was the main train station since who knows when in the 19th century. It sure seems like newly built post-WWII, but as is mentioned above, maybe that's true of just about every train station in Germany - - and same definition of "new" as Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, etc.

Curious... does laying out a new central center-city hub station mean connecting it to new lines which fundamentally would get added underground?

And last of all - - I realize that the question is Europe - - but are there major "newer" cities elsewhere in the world that had an entire rail infrastructure laid out in the 20th century? For example, I have never been to Brasilia, but would it qualify? Anywhere in "new growth" Japan? any other city in Asia?

Good post...

Best wishes,

Rex

J62

I believe the key feature of the new Berlin central station is the fact that they've not just built a station but that there has been a huge rerouting and construction of major N/S and E/W lines.

If I remember correctly the N/S and E/W lines didn't converge at this location. Now they will. Not a small undertaking in a fully developed city anywhere.

sfosjcoak

NY Times has been known to print stories without checking the obvious facts. We don't need to go there.

Just one example, the massive Milan Central Station was completed in 1931. The structure resembles a palace, and was built by order Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the fascist dictator.

ira

Hi Neopolitan,

Penn Station didn't go up until about 1910.

ira

>..Milan Central Station was completed in 1931. <

Florence SMN was built in 1935.

CotswoldScouser

sfosjcoak and ira:

Yes, but the rules of this question, as dictated by PalQ, are that stations replacing an older one don't count.

Practically all the fascist-era stations were built in cities that had had trains since the mid-19th century. None of those architectural notes in the Blue Guide about Stazione Centrale et al tell whether it replaced one central station, or whether there had previously been a number.

And a quick Web trawl seems to show an astonishing shortage of Italian railway history anoraks.

So the question remains: was there one central station in Milan and Rome before the current one was built?