{"id":333107,"date":"2019-04-14T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T04:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funzine.hu\/?p=333107"},"modified":"2019-04-11T15:28:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T14:28:53","slug":"333107","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funzine.hu\/en\/2019\/04\/14\/goodapest-en-2\/333107\/","title":{"rendered":"Budapest Uncovered: Railway Stations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Until the invention of the airplane and the arrival of airports, it was the duty of railway stations to give visitors a great first impression of their city. Railway stations began to pop up everywhere from the 1860s onwards, from small towns to big cities, built in parallel to railway construction. In this month\u2019s Budapest Uncovered, we\u2019ll take a look at two historic, and two modern structures of Hungarian railway history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The transportation revolution of the 19th century reached Hungary only 6 years after France opened the Saint Etienne-Lyon line: the first law regarding railway development and rail vehicle manufacturing was passed in 1836, containing a list of 13 Hungarian railway line plans. The first one was opened between V\u00e1c and Pest on 15 July 1846, giving way to a 2,279 km long railway network by the time of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, and rapid modernization all across the country.<\/p>\n

Nyugati Railway Station<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Planned by August de Serres, and constructed in the span of three years by the Eiffel Company, Nyugati was opened for traffic on 28 October 1877. Its marvellous iron-and-glass facade overlooks one of the major intersections of the Grand Boulevard, and hides a 25,000 square meters large, 146 meters long, 25 meters high platform hall. Besides witnessing the introduction of Siemens & Halske\u2019s modern switching system in 1881, and the trial journeys of K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Kand\u00f3\u2019s phase-changing electric locomotives, Nyugati also served as the location for one of the most picturesque railway accidents: during a reversing, ten carriages became detached from a train, crashed through the waiting hall\u2019s glass walls, and landed on the Grand Boulevard, injuring an elderly woman.<\/p>\n

If you step inside the once-imposing waiting hall, what you\u2019ll notice first is how grimy and unkept everything looks: as one journalist writing for the Economist put it, \u201cit\u2019s like seeing a countess begging in the gutter\u201d. You will only really understand the meaning of this apt description if you visit the gorgeously decorated Royal Waiting Hall, built for Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Queen Sissi. The opulent room, whose entrance is hallmarked by the words \u201cViribus Unitis\u201d, the motto of the Emperor, can only be viewed as part of a group tour, or during the special events of M\u00c1V Nostalgia. As most other railway stations in the country, Nyugati could also use a long-awaited overhaul: it\u2019s surreal that the tidiest and most graceful section of the railway station is a McDonald\u2019s restaurant.<\/p>\n

Keleti Railway Station<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Designed by Gyula Rochlitz and J\u00e1nos Feketeh\u00e1zy, the man who gave us the magnificent Liberty Bridge, Keleti Railway Station was completed in 1884 after a three-year construction process. The eclectic style building was one of the most up-to-date railway stations of its time in Europe, with a 42-meter wide steel-frame reception hall, 5 platforms (today there are four tracks inside the hall, and eight outside), and the statues of James Watt and George Stephenson pinned to the 43-meter tall main facade. Despite its name (Keleti means eastern), the station only serves westbound trains, and is Budapest\u2019s main international railway terminal.<\/p>\n

D\u00e9li Railway Station<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Located in Buda\u2019s Krisztinav\u00e1ros neighbourhood, D\u00e9li is the second busiest railway terminal in the country after Keleti, serving primarily the towns and cities of Transdanubia. It was first opened in 1861 with only a few tracks and a wooden waiting hall. As railway traffic on the line grew, so did the size of the terminal: by the 1870s a huge, two-storey stone building was erected here. Everything went smooth for D\u00e9li in the coming decades, until WWII came along and damaged the terminal so heavily that there was no alternative but to raze it to the ground. The new, glass and concrete terminal was designed in modern style by Gy\u00f6rgy K\u0151v\u00e1ri and was completed in 1975. Opinions about the building differ, but everyone agrees that D\u00e9li is in a dire need of reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Kelenf\u00f6ld Railway Station<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kelenf\u00f6ld is the odd-one-out of our compilation: it\u2019s not a terminal, but as it\u2019s the fourth busiest railway station of the city, we couldn\u2019t disregard it. It was opened concurrently with D\u00e9li, by the same company (the Southern Railways), in 1861. D\u00e9li and Kelenf\u00f6ld are connected by a 361 meters long tunnel that\u2019s carved into the belly of Gell\u00e9rt Hill. The historicizing station building dates from 1884, and is under monument protection – maybe that explains why it\u2019s in such an awful state. Since 2014 Kelenf\u00f6ld has been connected to downtown Budapest by the M4 metro line: during the line\u2019s construction works, the railway station was extended by new platforms, coupled with escalators and elevators, as well as a shiny new underpass with ticket machines, free WIFI, bicycle storage, and shops, which resulted in the new platform overtaking the railway station role from the main building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this month\u2019s Budapest Uncovered, we\u2019ll take a look at structures of Hungarian railway history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":383,"featured_media":333111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1255,1388],"tags":[11199,11741],"post_places":[],"class_list":["post-333107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-goodapest-en-2","tag-budapest-uncovered","tag-railway-station"],"acf":{"connected_places":null,"del_image":""},"yoast_head":"\nBudapest Uncovered: Railway Stations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/funzine.hu\/en\/2019\/04\/14\/goodapest-en-2\/333107\/\" 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