Gdańsk Główny - Railway Station

View of Gdansk Glowny

As weird as this might sound I will say it :I like railway stations. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that as a child I rarely travelled by train despite living by a train station. Well, it is hard to explain why I like train stations, I am not a train fan after all. I think it has to do with ambience of each train station. Luckily for me TriCity has one of the prettier railway stations in Poland :)

Front of the main station in Gdansk

Lets start our railway station journey with Gdansk Glowny railway station. I always knew that the building is old and quite well known. But I was surprised at some things I read about the history of not only the building, but main train station of Gdansk.

Front of the Train Station

As I read the first train station of Gdansk was maybe not in totally different place, but in a bit of a distance from present station. To give you some kind of idea of the distance: it takes around 10 minutes drive from existing station to the first ever train station, that doesn't exist anymore. The fist railway station was build in Gdansk in 1852 and it was called "Dworzec Brama Nizinna" or "Leegetor Bahnhof", which could be translated to "Lower Gate Train Station".

Dworzec Glowny Gdansk :)

In 1967 on the ground of todays main station, a small station called Highland Gate Station was open (apparently the station was accessible from one side only, as there was still moat that was a part of early modern period fortification of Gdansk). However in 1894 it was decided to expand the railway station, therefore the works have begun by buring the moat and demolishing of western bastions. The style of the building is apparently Gdansk renaissance. I didn't know that Gdansk had its own architectural style, but it is fine with me :)

Main window of main railway  station

The central building was to be called "Empfangsgebaude" which means reception building. Grand opening was scheduled on 30th of October 1900. When I think about the design of the building station and amenities planned, all of it seems to me so proper and even exotic.  Maybe it is just caused by my imagination, because when I read that reception hall with ticket office along with luggage storage, phone booths, police station, telegraph office and waiting rooms (separate for first and second class, and third and forth class) I imagine women walking in big dresses and carrying umbrellas with them, policeman bowing at the sight of women. And most importantly waiting rooms looking like luxury lounges rather than room filled with dirty benches with graffitti on them.

The tower of Railway station

I think that most impressive feature of the whole building (that of course I found out about now) is that the clock tower served as a water tower and clock tower, with electrically powered clock at the same time. Naturally nowadays the tower has sole purpose of being clock tower since all trains run on electricity.

Gdansk railway station, early 1900. source: http://gdansk.fotopolska.eu

Train station, early 1900, source: http://gdansk.fotopolska.eu

Shortly after the building work was completed, the whole area was transformed, hotels were being built practically overnight. The area became one of the most desired areas in whole of Gdansk. As I wanted to write that the train station was burned down after II WW and the original design will remain unknown, I managed to find few pictures of the building from early 1900. Therefore we know that replica of the building is very close to first one.

Train station from the back

Unfortunately close proximity of Hail Mountain prevented expansion of the railway station. I am not so much saddened by it, though :)

Tracks of railway station