Moscow Kursk Railway Station

The main building from the 1970s

The Kursk Station ( Russian Курский вокзал / Kurski Vokzal ) is one of the largest train stations in the Russian capital Moscow . It was opened in its current form in 1896.

General

The station is located in the east of Moscow city center on the Garden Ring . A special feature of the station is that it is the starting point of two main railway lines, namely the one to southern Russia and the Ukraine and a section of the Trans-Siberian via Nizhny Novgorod and Perm . Therefore, trains start from here both to the south, such as B. to Baku , to the Crimea , to the east of Ukraine , to Kursk , Volgograd and the Russian Caucasus , as well as to the Volga regions. There are also connections from Kursk station with local trains (so-called Elektritschki ) to many cities in Moscow Oblast (including, for example, Schelesnodorozhny , Serpuchow , Chekhov , Orechowo-Sujewo , Balashicha ) as well as to the regional capitals Tula and Vladimir .

The Kursk train station is connected to the Moscow metro network with three lines: The Kurskaya station on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line - and the station of the same name on the Kolzewaya line and the Chkalovskaya station on the Lyublinskaya line are located under the station and have exits in the immediate vicinity of the Platforms and the dispatch halls.

history

A platform and the old station building

A main train station, which was the starting point of the rail link between Moscow and Kursk or Nizhny Novgorod, was first built in Moscow in the early 1860s. At that time it was called Nizhny Novgorod Railway Station ( Нижегородский вокзал ) and consisted only of a small, temporary terminal building made of wood. In addition, it was a few hundred meters away from the current location.

With the completion of the southbound railway line in 1866, which initially connected Moscow with Serpukhov and a little later continued to Tula, Orjol and Kursk, the number of passengers at the station rose so much that it had to be provisionally expanded by two extensions. Since the operating company could not agree on a new location for the station with the city administration for years - the old location was not considered in the long term due to the relatively unfavorable location - it took around 30 years before a new station could be built.

Only after the Russian state had bought up the previously private railway lines - in the case of the railway lines to Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod, this happened in 1894 - a solution could be found for the location: it was decided to build a common central station for both railway lines near the Gartenring to let. Finally, on June 14, 1896, the new Kursk station opened, which originally consisted of a reception building that is still used today for handling trains in the Nizhny Novgorod direction.

The station underwent extensive reconstruction in the 1930s. After a few decades later the capacity of the old reception building could no longer cope with the number of passengers, the Kursk station received a new reception hall for trains in the Kursk direction in 1972. This 15-meter-high functional building, with its steel and glass façade facing the garden ring, defines the image of the station to this day. It can accommodate up to 11,000 people at the same time.

Train traffic

Long-distance passenger connections from Kursk train station currently exist according to:

Others

The most prominent mention of the Kursk train station in literature is the opening scene of the book Die Reise nach Petuschki (1970) by Wenedikt Erofejew . There the plot is based on a trip on the suburban train to Petushki near Vladimir. All stops on the Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod line to Petushki are also authentically listed there.