Helsinki Central railway station

Helsinki Helsingfors
Location	Asema-aukio, 00100 Helsinki Stationsplatsen, 00100 Helsingfors
Coordinates	60°10′19″N 24°56′29″E / 60.17194°N 24.94139°E / 60.17194; 24.94139Coordinates: 60°10′19″N 24°56′29″E / 60.17194°N 24.94139°E / 60.17194; 24.94139
Owned by	Finnish Transport Agency
Operated by	VR Group
Platforms	19 (originally 8)
Connections	Rautatientori metro station   Helsinki tram 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7A, 7B, 9, 10   Helsinki buses
Construction
Structure type	ground station
Disabled access	7
History
Opened	1862 (current station building: 1919)
Traffic
Passengers	about 200,000 daily
Services
Preceding station   VR commuter rail   Following station Terminus Y Pasila toward Siuntio X Pasila toward Kirkkonummi U L E Pasila toward Kauklahti A Pasila toward Leppävaara I/P Pasila toward Helsinki Central D Pasila toward Riihimäki R T N Pasila toward Kerava K Z Pasila toward Lahti Preceding station   Finnish Railways   Following station Terminus Helsinki-Tampere Pasila toward Tampere Helsinki-Turku Pasila toward Turku Harbour Helsinki-Lahti Pasila toward Lahti
Location
Helsinki Central The location of the station in Helsinki

Helsinki Central railway station (Finnish: Helsingin päärautatieasema, Swedish: Helsingfors centralstation) (IATA: HEC) is a widely recognised landmark in Kluuvi, part of central Helsinki, Finland, and the focal point of public transport in the Greater Helsinki area. The station is used by approximately 200,000 passengers per day, making it Finland's most-visited building. It serves as the terminus for all trains in the local commuter rail network, as well as for a large proportion of long-distance trains in Finland. The station also hosts the Rautatientori metro station, which is the busiest station of the Helsinki Metro.

The station building was designed by Eliel Saarinen and inaugurated in 1919. It was chosen as one of the world's most beautiful railway stations by BBC in 2013.^[1]

Features

Entrance

Intercity 2 trains under the glass ceiling

The statues at the front of the station are often parodied—such as supporting the monorail at Linnanmäki amusement park

The ticket hall in the Helsinki Central railway station.

The station is mostly clad in Finnish granite, and its distinguishing features are its clock tower and the two pairs of statues holding the spherical lamps, lit at night-time, on either side of the main entrance. Animated characters based on the statues have recently been featured in some major advertising campaigns by Finland's government-owned railway operator VR, to the extent of releasing rap singles allegedly sung by Kivimiehet ("The stone men").

There are 19 platforms at the station. Platforms 1–3 are on the east side and serve local trains on the Tikkurila route, their tracks stop short of the main station roof. Platforms 4–11 in the centre of the station are the main platforms for longer-distance trains which stretch down to terminate in front of the main station building. Platforms 5–10 serve trains running via Tikkurila to Tampere, St Petersburg and other points north and east, while platforms 11–12 serve express trains via the Espoo line to Turku. Platforms 12–19 are on the west side and serve local trains on the Espoo and Kehärata routes, again their tracks stop short of the main station roof. The tracks funnel into separate express and local tracks for both the Espoo and the Tikkurila routes with the express tracks in the middle and the local tracks on the outside, aligning with their respective platforms. This gives eight principal tracks but there is an additional ninth express track for the Tikkurila route out through the Pasila station, the first stop out, about five minutes or 3 km north of the central railway station. All trains stop at Pasila.

The central railway station serves as a central hub for Finnish transport. There are many platforms for local buses on both the west and the east sides of the main station building. The Helsinki Metro Rautatientori station is located under the main station building, linked through the Asematunneli pedestrian underpass and underground shopping centre complex, which has entrances in the main hall of the station and at various points in the surrounding streets. The majority of Helsinki's tram routes pass in front of or to the west of the station. The Helsinki central bus station is located at Kamppi Center, about 400 m, or one metro stop, to the west of the railway station.

Although the Helsinki-Vantaa airport is reachable from the station by the P and I local trains, there are also regular bus connections between the station and the airport: two municipal buses (415 and 615 service 24/7) operated by HSL, and a private express bus operated by Finnair, where HSL tickets are not accepted.

The main maintenance area for the Finnish Railways is located in the fork between the Espoo and the Tikkurila lines, just north of the Pasila station. The loading point for cars onto car-carrying trains has been moved from the central railway station to the Pasila station. The old steam locomotive roundhouse facility still stands just to the south of Pasila station and is used for various functions.

History and renovation

Helsinki's first railway station.

The metro station can be accessed through the Asematunneli complex

The first railway station in Helsinki was built in 1860, as Finland's first railway between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna was opened. The station's plans were drawn by the Swedish architect Carl Albert Edelfelt. However, as the popularity of railways grew, the station turned out to be too small, and a contest was organised in 1904 with the intention of producing plans for a new station. The contest received 21 entries, and was won by Eliel Saarinen, with a pure national romanticist design, which sparked off a vigorous debate about the architecture of major public buildings, with demands for a modern, rational style. Saarinen himself abandoned romanticism altogether and re-designed the station completely. The new design was finished in 1909 and the station was opened in 1919.

President of Finland Kyösti Kallio died at the station on 19 December 1940 of a heart attack, as he was going back home to Nivala after having retired as President. Legend says he died in the arms of Marshal Mannerheim.

The clock tower side of the station was damaged in a fire on 14 June 1950.^[2]

In the 1960s, the underground Asematunneli pedestrian underpass and underground shopping centre complex was built south of the station. The first surveillance cameras in the station hall were installed in the spring of 1968.^[3]

The first electric train arrived at the station on 13 January 1969. After testing, regular electric train traffic was started between Helsinki and Kirkkonummi railway station on 26 January 1969.^[4][5]

Statues at the station

The Rautatientori metro station, connected to the railway station via Asematunneli, was built part of the Helsinki Metro construction work. It was among the first stations of the metro to be opened in 1982.

In 2000, a glass roof, which had already been in the original drawings by Eliel Saarinen, was built over the railway station's central platforms, although to a new design. In 2003, the shopping wing Kauppakuja was opened along with a hotel.

The area between Parliament House, Helsinki and the passenger station, to the west of the station, contained the VR warehouses, a rail-freight complex. Its original use had long been discontinued in 2006, when it was torn down to make space for the Helsinki Music Centre.

One of the tracks branching to the west just before the central railway station bypassed the warehouses. It was a freight route, the Helsinki harbour rail, that passed through the inner west side of Helsinki to the West Harbour, and earlier, all the way around the Helsinki peninsula to Katajanokka. The remaining section of the branch was discontinued in 2009, when sea freight operations were moved to the new Vuosaari Harbour from old harbours. Its right-of-way was converted into a pedestrian and bicycle route.

On 7 June 2010, the station was officially renamed Helsingin päärautatieasema-Helsingfors centralstation (Helsinki main, or central, railway station, in Finnish and Swedish), replacing the previous official name Helsingin rautatieasema-Helsingfors järnvägsstation (Helsinki railway station). The Finnish transport bureau use "Helsinki C" as a shorthand, and there were erroneous news reports that this shorthand would also be taken into official use. The Turku Central railway station was renamed in a similar manner.^[6]

Presidential lounge

The presidential lounge

One of the station's less known features is a private 50-square-metre (540 sq ft) waiting lounge exclusively for the use of the President of Finland and his/her official guests. The lounge, featuring furniture designed by Eliel Saarinen, has two entrances, a bigger one leading outside to the Rautatientori square and a smaller one leading to the main station hall. The lounge was first completed in 1911 and was originally intended for the private use of the Emperor of Russia,^[7] but the First World War delayed its official inauguration to 1919, at which point it had been converted into a temporary military hospital, and was afterwards given to the use of the Finnish President.

Incidents

Over the years, there have been a few incidents at the station. However, no lives have been lost due to them:^[8]

• 28 August 1926: a passenger train (pulled by Hv2 674) crashed into the passenger hall. 18 were injured.
• 23 October 1944: a passenger train from Turku crashed through a buffer stop. The locomotive ended in the outer hall of the station.
• 5 October 1990: a runaway freight train crashed into the building. Two wagons ended in the passenger hall and many others ended on the platforms.^[9]

4 January 2010 accident

Damaged hotel building after the accident

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Helsinki train crash on January 4, 2010.

On 4 January 2010, four empty passenger carriages overran the buffers of platform 13. The carriages had broken free of their train during a shunting manoeuvre and ran under gravity down the gentle hill from Linnunlaulu (halfway between Helsinki Central and Pasila railway station) before being diverting into an empty platform and impacting the buffers at 20–30 kilometres per hour.^[10]

The eight-carriage train arriving from the depot had been due to form the 08:12 departure running from Helsinki to Kajaani, through central Finland via Lahti and Kuopio.^[10][11][12] The formation which broke away consisted of three double-decker "Intercity 2" carriages, followed by a single-decker restaurant car.^[13] The runaway carriages were quickly detected and deliberately routed into one of the shorter commuter platforms (fitted with large concrete barriers beyond the buffers^[11]) in order to minimise damage to the main station area.^[13] Passengers aboard an adjacent commuter train waiting to depart were ordered to leave their train and run away from the area and announcements were made over the station's loudspeaker system. The first carriage of the four runaway cars mounted the concrete barrier. Members of the public in an Ernst & Young office beyond the end of the platform and those in the Holiday Inn hotel above the platforms all escaped without injury. The first carriage then struck the hotel's conference room,^[14] causing extensive damage to the room.^[15] The conductor aboard the train as it came in sustained light injuries to their arm,^[11] with nobody else injured.^[16][17]

Services had resumed—at a reduced level by the afternoon—following repairs to damage to the overhead line.^[18] The Finnish Accident Investigation Board announced that they would proceed with an investigation into why the brakes had not automatically applied.^[10] A restaurant car and one of the passenger carriages were towed to the depot by a diesel locomotive during the course of the night,^[13] after which the front carriage was partially dragged back out of the hotel building.^[19] The building that had taken the force of the crash was deemed to be structurally sound.^[20]

On 18 January 2010 the Finnish Accident Investigation Board made available their interim report which concluded that the incident had been caused by a combination of bad weather and then human error. Initially, snow and ice had caused the front carriages to detach from the rest of the train; followed by the guard having released the brakes manually—not realizing that the two halves of the train were no longer coupled.^[21]

See also

• Railway lines in Finland

Bibliography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Helsinki Central railway station.

• Helsinki railway station

Helsinki Central railway station

	Y
Karjaa (Karis)																T	R	D		Z
Inkoo (Ingå)					Martinlaakso (Mårtensdal)								Vantaankoski (Vandaforsen)						Riihimäki		Lahti (Lahtis)
Siuntio (Sjundeå)		S	U	L	Louhela (Klippsta)								Vehkala (Veckal)						Hyvinkää (Hyvinge)
Kirkkonummi (Kyrkslätt)					Myyrmäki (Myrbacka)								Kivistö						Jokela
Tolsa(Tolls)					Malminkartano (Malmgård)								Aviapolis						Nuppulinna
Jorvas					Kannelmäki (Gamlas)								Airport (Lentoasema/Flygplatsen)						Purola		Mäntsälä
Masala (Masaby)					Pohjois‑Haaga (Norra Haga)								Leinelä (Lejle)						Saunakallio
Luoma (Bobäck)																			Järvenpää (Träskända)		Haarajoki
Mankki (Mankby)					E									K	N				Ainola
Kauklahti (Köklax)																			––––––––––––––––––--		Kerava (Kervo)
Espoo (Esbo)																			––––––––––––––––––--		Savio
Tuomarila (Domsby)																			––––––––––––––––––--		Korso
Koivuhovi (Björkgård)																			––––––––––––––––––--		Rekola (Räckhals)
Kauniainen (Grankulla)																			––––––––––––––––––--		Koivukylä (Björkby)
Kera													–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Hiekkaharju (Sandkulla)
Kilo						A							–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Tikkurila (Dickursby)
Leppävaara (Alberga)													–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Puistola (Parkstad)
Mäkkylä													–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Tapanila (Mosabacka)
Pitäjänmäki (Sockenbacka)													–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Malmi (Malm)
Valimo (Gjuteriet)													–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Pukinmäki (Bocksbacka)
Huopalahti (Hoplax)							––––––––––––––––––						–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Oulunkylä (Åggelby)
Ilmala							––––––––––––––––––						–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Käpylä (Kottby)
Pasila (Böle)							––––––––––––––––––			–––			–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Pasila (Böle)
Helsinki (Helsingfors)							––––––––––––––––––			–––			–––––––––––––––––––––						––––––––––––––––––--		Helsinki (Helsingfors)
	Y	S	U	L	E	A		P	I		I	P		K	N	T	R	D		Z

= train stops at station
= train passes station without stopping
= train bypasses station
= train stops at station, but only in the marked direction