The Turku Central railway station (Finnish: Turun päärautatieasema, Swedish: Åbo centralstation) is a railway station in the VII District of Turku, Finland. It has VR services to Helsinki and towards Joensuu (most terminate in Tampere or Pieksämäki). The station serves approximately a million people annually.
The railway station was opened in 1876, together with the newly built railway between Turku and Tampere, in a celebration attended by the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Services were at first only to Tampere and Toijala, and the significance of railways was rather minor. In 1899, a new railway to Helsinki was opened, and subsequently rail traffic to and from Turku became more frequent.
The older station was demolished in 1938, and a new, more modern, one was built in its place. The current building, completed in 1940, was designed by Finnish architects Väinö Vähäkallio and Martti Välikangas.
In addition to the two main railway lines to Helsinki and Joensuu, the station has handled passenger traffic to Naantali and Uusikaupunki. These local lines have been discontinued due to lack of use, but are still used by goods traffic. In addition, there is talk of re-establishing the line to Naantali in the near future, either as a museum railway line or a form of local public transport.
Unlike the Helsinki Central railway station, which stands out as a prominent landmark of downtown Helsinki, the Turku Central railway station blends in among the scenery and is hidden behind other buildings when viewed from the city centre. Because of this, it can be difficult for non-Turkuans to get their bearings around the railway station.
On 7 June 2010, the Turku Central railway station was officially renamed Turun päärautatieasema-Åbo centralstation (Turku main railway station, or Turku central railway station) in Finnish and Swedish, replacing the previous official name Turun rautatieasema-Åbo järnvägsstation (Turku railway station). The Finnish transport bureau use "Turku C" as a shorthand, and there were erroneous news reports that this shorthand would also be taken into official use. The Helsinki Central railway station was renamed in a similar manner.
Famous quotes containing the words central, railway and/or station:
“It’s easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)