Sofia railway station
| София / Sofia | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Aerial view of Sofia train station with forecourt
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| Data | |
| Location in the network | Separation station |
| Design | Through station |
| Platform tracks | 13 |
| opening | 1888 |
| location | |
| City / municipality | Sofia |
| Oblast | Sofia city |
| Country | Bulgaria |
| Coordinates | 42 ° 42 ′ 43 " N , 23 ° 19 ′ 15" E |
| Railway lines | |
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The Sofia Station ( Bulgarian Гара София / Sofia Gara or Централна гара София / Zentralna gara Sofia / Central Railway Station Sofia ) is the main station of the Bulgarian capital Sofia .
location
The train station is about a kilometer north of the Lion Bridge , on Knjaginja Maria Louisa Boulevard . Immediately to the east of the train station is the newly built Sofia bus station .
To the north of the train station is the Orlandowzi district, with a thermal power station in the north and the Sofia Central Cemetery in the northeast.
history
The first station building was designed by the architects Adolf Vaclav Kolář (1841–1900), Bogdan Prošek and T. Markow (Bulgarian Т. Марков ; Васил Марков?). Adolf Vaclav Kolář was busy building the station from 1886 to 1895. The construction period extended from 1882 to 1888.
The Sofia Central Station (then still: Sofia Railway Station) was opened on August 1, 1888. This first Sofia station was built for the Zaribrod –Sofia– Wakarel line, the first line of the Bulgarian State Railways ( Balgarski Darschawni Schelesnizi ), which was built entirely by Bulgarian engineers. At the opening ceremony of the station, a train from London arrived via Paris, which continued on the following day via Plovdiv and Edirne to Istanbul .
With the opening of Sofia Central Station on August 1, 1888 (August 12, 1888 according to the old calendar), the full length of the Zaribrod-Sofia-Wakarel railway line was opened to international traffic. The continuous rail connection from Western Europe to Istanbul was thus completed. Since then, the Orient Express has also used this route.
On the day the Sofia Central Railway Station opened and the Zaribrod – Sofia – Wakarel line was opened, the Bulgarian State Railways was also founded. That is why Bulgaria still celebrates "Railway Worker's Day" on the first day of the week in August.
Bulgaria opened the station and the railway line to Central and Western Europe only ten years after gaining independence in 1887 and made every effort to create a transport connection to the countries of Central and Western Europe with its industrial centers for further economic development. Until then, the usual route of transport was the Danube, with the goods then having to be transported from the Bulgarian Danube port of the city of Lom 200 to 300 km on ox carts to Sofia.
When choosing the location for the first train station in Sofia, the architects prevailed over the members of the city administration. They originally wanted the train station right in the city center, in front of the Sofia Central Mineral Bath , on the Badplatz and not three kilometers north and at that time still outside the city, on the road to the villages of Nadezhda (bulg. Надежда ) and Wrabnitsa (bulg. Връбница ). Instead, the Sofia Central Market Hall was built from 1909 to 1911 at the originally planned location on Badplatz .
The station building was built between 1882 and 1888 with the participation of Italian specialists and the entrepreneur Ivan Grozew ( Иван Грозев , who later became mayor of Sofia). The building was one-story, 96 m long and 12 m wide. It had a small bell tower on the south facade facing the Vitosha Mountains . The east and west wings each had a second floor.
The first station master was Josif Karapirow ( Йосиф Карапиров ), he had previously been an employee of Baron Hirsch's Compagnie des Chemins de fer Orientaux . In 1894 Georg Unterberg became stationmaster. After 11 years in service, in 1905 he was promoted to inspector for the Main Directorate of the Bulgarian State Railways. From 1906 to 1907 he was its general director. Later Edgard Karapirow, the son of the first station master, was station master for twelve years.
In 1923 the station had 144 employees. Communication for railway safety purposes was carried out using a Morse code machine. This was the Belgian Leopold Morse code until 1914, and then the Siemens Morse code.
When the Podujane freight station was built in Sofia and the transport of people was separated from the transport of goods, the Sofia station was renamed Sofia Central Station in 1948 .
The Bulgarian Minister of Transport plans (as of April 2010) to lease the station as a concession operation or to operate it as a public-private partnership , as well as the stations in Sofia-Podujane , Plovdiv and Varna, the ports in Burgas , Varna , Russe, Vidin and Lom as well as the Airports in Plovdiv , Gorna Oryachovitsa , Stara Sagora and Russe.
At the moment the station is still owned by the Railway Infrastructure Company ( Национална Компания Железопътна Инфраструктура / Nazionalna Kompanija Schelesopatna Infrastruktura / National Society for Railway Infrastructure; in short: НКЖИ / NKŽI). This was created in 2002 when the Bulgarian State Railways (BDŽ) was split up into an operating company and an infrastructure company. The Bulgarian State Railways, founded in 1888, had the state monopoly on rail transport in Bulgaria and was therefore always the owner of Sofia Central Station.
building
Old station building
The old station building had three waiting rooms for passengers: in the waiting room for the first class there were sofas covered with red velvet, in the second class they were covered in green and in the third class there were only wooden benches. In the basement of the station building there was a bathroom for the railway staff. The station was designed for a city with 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. In the year the station opened in 1888, Sofia had around 20,000 inhabitants; it was not until 1910 that the number of inhabitants reached the limit of 100,000.
The station was lit with gas lanterns. On the platform, next to the main entrance, under the station clock, there was a bell whose ringing meant the following:
- 1. Ring the bell - ticket sales begin,
- 2. Ring the bell - say goodbye and get on the train,
- 3. Ringing the bell - departure of the train.
There was a bronze fountain on the station forecourt . The carriages were also waiting for their customers there.
The first locomotive arrived by rail at Sofia Central Station on November 6, 1887. She was named Katerina and had the task of testing the tracks on the Sofia – Wakarel railway line. The locomotives were heated with wood.
Sofia Central Station was expanded and rebuilt several times.
From 1908 to 1912 the station was expanded under the new director of the Technical Directorate of the Bulgarian State Railways, Ing. Karakaschew. It was expected that after the expansion, the station would meet the requirements of the transport volume for the next 50 years. A new locomotive shed was also built next to the depot and the baggage and parcel warehouse was expanded. Furthermore, additional service buildings and residential buildings were built for the railway workers.
To the west and east of the station (the two exit directions), a further expansion took place in 1915 and in 1927 a modern signal box was built west of the station.
Today's station building
After the construction of the new station building had already begun in 1971, the groundbreaking ceremony took place on February 23, 1971 by the then Transport Minister Grigor Stoitschkow, the old station building was completely demolished on April 14, 1974 - the western part of the old station building. The current station building was built from 1971 to 1974 in the brutalist style, based on a design by the architects Olga Stantschewa, Snescha Daskalowa and Milan Dobrew (according to other sources by the Transprojekt company under the direction of the architect Milko Bechtew). The new station building was opened on September 6, 1974. It has two underground levels and three above ground. Most of it was clad in white marble. The roof rests on 36 X-shaped columns. The station has seven covered platforms, 13 tracks and a waiting room with 500 seats.
In front of the train station, a 34-meter-tall statue of “Mother with Child” (according to other sources “Sofia”) was erected by the sculptor Velichki Minekow ( Величко Минеков ).
The main station and the square in front of the main station were completely overhauled after 2000, the architect was Milan Dobrew. There was a large with cable nets guyed tent roof construction in the style of the Munich Olympic Stadium , m² with an area of 4500, built on the forecourt of the station. The interior of the station has also been significantly modernized. The cost of the renovation project was $ 3.5 million. In 2012 the tent roof structure was dismantled due to safety concerns.
Since August 31, 2012, the main station has been connected to the second subway line of the Sofia Metro , which runs between Obelja ( Обеля ) station via the Serdika ( Сердика ) transfer station to James Bourchier ( Джеймс Баучер ) station in the Losenez district.
The building complex was completely renovated between 2012 and 2016, with particular emphasis on a modern and contemporary appearance, as well as significant energy savings. The cost was more than 20 mil. Euro.
Main entrance to the street outside before 2012; Labeling: Bulgarian and French
Main entrance to the tracks before 2012; Interestingly, “Sofia” is on the top line, but facing the street on the bottom line
the large counter and waiting hall before the renovation
Main entrance after the renovation in 2016
"Mother with child"
statistics
Around the time the Sofia train station was built (1882 to 1888), the population of Sofia grew rapidly: from 20,201 (January 1, 1881) to 46,600 (January 1, 1893). In the first few years after the station opened, around 26,400 travelers used the station annually; In 1895 there were 81,000; In 1900 already 286,000 and in 1905 then 415,000 annually.
Because of the rapidly increasing number of passengers, the construction of another train station in Sofia was considered. The first project of this kind was by engineer L. Chaschkow ( Л. Хашнов ) having a terminus at the present intersection ul. Rakoski corner Bul. Dondukov provided. However, the project was not accepted. A second project was pushed forward 5 years later by a commission of specialists and influential personalities. However, due to the lack of space in the city center, it was also discarded. A third rejected project from 1905/07 envisaged leaving the old station as a marshalling yard and building a new, larger station between the streets or boulevards of Eksarch Josif , Iskar , Dondukow and Serdika .
From January to July 2004, 2,323,844 travelers used the station. That corresponded to 11.8% of Bulgaria's railway passengers during this period. On average, 10,910 passengers used 166 trains (84 arriving and 82 departing) from Sofia Central Station every day. The station has 30 ticket offices and five electronic display boards.
Long-distance transport
There are international train connections from Sofia Central Station to: Belgrade , Bucharest , Istanbul , Moscow and Niš . (see also: International course book series of BDŽ )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grigor Doytchinov and Christo Ganchev: Austrian Architects in Bulgaria 1878-1918 . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2001. p. 147
- ↑ Sofia Central Station and the train stations in Plovdiv and Varna are leased. (bulg.)
source
- stara-sofia.blogspot.com (bulg.)
- Sofia Railway Station was built in 1888 (bulg.)
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