Prague Main Railway Station has been serving passengers for 150 years. It was named after the emperor and the American president – ČT24 – Czech Television
The beginnings of the railways in the Czech lands, and thus in the entire Habsburg monarchy, were marked by fragmentation. The lines had mostly private owners, some did not choose to fight among themselves, and the first attempt by the state to enter the railway market ended with the lines built and all the essentials in private hands.
Under these conditions, the Emperor Francis Joseph’s Railway began to emerge immediately after the defeat of the Prussian War. Its main purpose was to ensure the connection of Vienna with the west of Bohemia, and therefore Bavaria, but the company of Emperor Franz Josef’s Railway had the ambition to build a branch from Gmünd via Tábor and Benešov to Prague. The first sections began to be built in November 1866, in 1868 a section of the main route between České Budějovice and Pilsen was opened, in 1870 it was connected to Vienna and on December 14, 1871 the first passengers reached the branch on a branch.
The railway station, which, like the entire line, bore the name of Emperor Franz Josef at the time, did not expect the great glory with which Prague welcomed its first steam engine train 26 years earlier. After all, it was the fifth railway that led to Prague and represented only an alternative connection with Vienna to the state railway, which led through Brno and Česká Třebová.
Railway station for all directions
However, the new line gave Prague several extremely important railway elements: the Vinohrady tunnel, the Nusle heating plant and the Emperor František Josef railway station itself. Its importance was enhanced by the fact that the concession to build the line from the south to Prague also included the obligation to build the Prague Connecting Railway, which connected the hitherto isolated railways. In Smíchov, it followed the route of the Czech Western Railway from Pilsen or the Bavarian Brod nad Lesy in Bavaria, and connected to the railway of Emperor František Josef at the southern portal of the Vinohrady Tunnel. It included a railway bridge over the Vltava, later also the Vinohrady stop and the Vyšehrad railway station. From the station of Emperor František Josef there was another connection, which connected him with the line of the State Railway Company, which led from Olomouc to today’s Masaryk railway station.
And so the station of Emperor Franz Josef became a railway station, from where trains could leave Prague not only to the south, but also to the west and east. It was not possible to travel only north from here – a full-fledged connection to the line to Ústí nad Labem was established more than a century later. And because the new railway station was quite well located – although it stood behind the walls, but really right behind them, moreover, it was established only a few years before their abolition – it was much more accessible to Prague than, for example, the Smíchov western railway station.
Already a year after the opening of the Emperor František Josef railway station, another railway station was established right next to it, to which the Turnov-Kralupy railway ended.
The station in the hands of the state had to be enlarged
In 1884, the Railway of Emperor Francis Joseph was nationalized. At that time, the Austrian state reconsidered its approach to rail transport, gradually began to buy the lines, and the one named after the monarch was one of the first. In the early 1990s, the state also took over the western railway, and so the station of Emperor Franz Josef became the terminal station of the state railway network, which covered the south and west of Bohemia. And because the original Vienna-Prague line through Brno remained in private hands, it suddenly represented a strategic link between Prague and the capital of the Pre-Lithuanian region. The consequence, however, was that the original station building and the old railway track were no longer sufficient.
Therefore, at the beginning of the new century, a new station for Emperor Franz Josef began to emerge. The main change was the demolition of the original Neo-Renaissance building, the construction of an even larger, monumental Art Nouveau building designed by Josef Fanta. Large platforms were built next to it, covered with a massive steel structure. At the same time, the railway stations of Emperor František Josef and the Czech Northern Railway (which took over the original Turnov-Kralupy railway and was nationalized itself before the completion of the new railway station) were unified.
The new building was built in 1901, and was completed eight years later. Incidentally, it was completed in the year the National Railway Company (whose name did not mean that it was were connected to the new station, now belonged to the state.
After 1918, the station was renamed. Names commemorating the representatives of the defunct Austria-Hungary were banned, but the new name for the railway station was obvious – it honored US President Woodrow Wilson, whose stance was in favor of an independent Czechoslovakia and whose statue was also created in the park in front of the station.
During the German occupation, the station was renamed Prague Main Railway Station or Prag Hauptbahnhof. After liberation, it became Wilson’s Station again, but in 1953 the Communist regime renamed it Central Station. Although Wilson’s name returned to the station’s name in the 1990s, it is not widely used. Today, the full name is Prague Central Station, President Wilson Station. In 2011, a new statue of the president was unveiled in the park in front of the station.
New hall, new platforms, new highway
Since 1909, the station has changed, both in terms of space for passengers and in terms of space for trains. Gradually, trains that used to run to the state railway station began to run on it, and a connection from Libno to Vítkov to the line of the former Turnov-Kralupy railway was created, so Wilson’s railway station already had a double-track connection to the main line to the east.
In the 1920s, Prague couplings were electrified and a practice that lasted for decades began – steam locomotives left trains at peripheral stations in Smíchov or Vršovice, and electric locomotives ran trains at Wilson Station. It did not pay 100%, especially major interstate express cars did not overdo it. Nevertheless, electrification helped to improve the air in the center of Prague and especially at Wilson Station.
In the 1940s, the line from Vršovice to Libno via Malešice was opened, thanks to which the number of freight trains passing through Wilson’s station was reduced. The second Vinohrady tunnel was also put into operation and the third was built. From the 1960s to the 1980s, a connection was established from Balabenka to Bubeneč. It connected the main railway station to the line to Ústí nad Labem and Dresden. In 1989, the third Vinohrady tunnel was completed and at the beginning of the new century a New Connection was established, thanks to which four – two to Libno and two to Vysočany and Holešovice – instead of the previous two tracks serving all trains in the direction of Libno, Vysočany and Holešovice.
Furthermore, with the construction of the New Connection, it underwent the reconstruction of the platform – and not for the first time. The Art Nouveau Fant Building served passengers for only seven decades. Construction began in the 1960s, and in 1977 a new check-in hall was opened, where the subways and exit from the metro led out, so that under normal circumstances passengers did not enter the historic buildings at all. This was exacerbated by the parallel de facto reconstruction of the Victorious February class (today’s Wilson’s) on the highway. Vrchlického sady, ie the park in front of the station, were reduced and modified.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the new check-in hall was reconstructed, but the historic building continued to fall into disrepair. The railway administration, which now belongs, started its reconstruction in 2019, it should be completed in 2023.
The underpasses that connect to the new check-in hall and the platform above them have undergone several changes. Originally, there were four platforms under the massive roof, accessible by two underpasses and not even two pieces of tracks. In the 1980s, a temporary fifth platform was created, which was accessed at the level of the fourth platform. In the following decade, it replaced three full-fledged platforms, and at the same time a third underpass was created. The original four platforms were reconstructed before 2009 and the underpasses below them were widened. This year, the Railway Administration opened an extension of the northern underpass towards Žižkov, which eliminated the need for passengers from this part of Prague to go around the main railway station or risk rushing.
Jubilee station, but also the track
The line to southern Bohemia, which is also celebrating at the same time as the station, is also undergoing reconstruction. At present, however, it no longer serves to connect Prague directly with Vienna; such trains disappeared from it in the 1990s. Although at least the Prague – České Velenice trains have been renewed since 2019, which run along the entire branch line put into operation in 1871. Today, however, the connection between Prague and České Budějovice, which uses the original line from Prague to Veselí nad Lužnicí and further to Čeké Budějovice, is much more important. trains run on the connecting line from 1874.
In the 1970s, the line between Prague and Benešov was electrified, and in the 1980s, it began to run electrically to Budějovice. After 2005, the gradual modernization of the Prague – České Budějovice line, which is part of IV. transit rail corridor. It includes double-tracking, increasing speed and in many places there are many kilometers of relocation. On the contrary, between Veselí nad Lužnicí and České Velenice, the track remains the same in its original form – non-electrified and single-track.