Prague-Vyšehrad railway station started operating 150 years ago
Dilapidated former station building. Photo: Jan Puci
The station in the Prague district of Vyšehrad was built in 1872 on the so-called Prague Connecting Railway between Hlavní and Smíchovský nádraží and was put into operation on September 15 of that year. The imposing art nouveau building was built between 1904 and 1905 according to the project of Antonín Balšánek, co-author of the Municipal House.
At the end of May 1960, however, it stopped serving traffic and has been dilapidated ever since, it was declared a cultural monument, just like the wooden waiting room. It was illegally demolished in 2008, and in 2014 the switchyard was also abolished and the track became part of the Prague-Smíchov railway station.
The station, the demolished waiting room and the guard house were declared a monument in 2000. At that time, several interested parties were interested in buying the building. In 2001, the company Nádraží came with an interest in renting, and wanted to build a multicultural center with a bookstore, cafes, gallery, bar and cinema. But that didn’t work out, and other ideas for resuming the operation of the station didn’t go well either.
České dráhy sold the building and its surroundings in 2007 for the highest offered price (42.5 million crowns) to TIP Estate, which was backed by Wall Street Commercial Bank from Oregon. In 2008, the company illegally cut down the surrounding poplars, lindens and bushes and subsequently demolished the half-timbered waiting room. The memorialists fined her 100,000 crowns for this. The company later promised – already as the restructured company RailCity Vyšehrad – further studies on the use of the falling monument.
In March 2020, representatives of the Prague municipality began negotiations with the foreign owner of the Vyšehrad railway station about the possible purchase or replacement of the historic building. However, negotiations did not go well and the municipality began to consider expropriation.
Last March, information appeared that the city is negotiating with the owner of the station about the possibility of exchanging the heritage-protected building for municipal land in Dolní Počernice intended for the construction of family houses.
An agreement has not yet been reached. Now the building is owned by the Cypriot company MIQUELIRA LIMITED through RailCity Vyšehrad, but the final owner is not officially known.