Helsinki Central railway station

Features

The station is mostly clad in Finnish granite, and its distinguishing features are its clock tower and the two pairs of statues holding the spherical lamps, lit at night-time, on either side of the main entrance. Animated characters based on the statues have recently been featured in some major advertising campaigns by Finland's government-owned railway operator VR, to the extent of releasing rap singles allegedly sung by Kivimiehet ("The stone men").

There are 19 platforms at the station. Platforms 1–3 are on the east side and serve local trains on the Tikkurila route, their tracks stop short of the main station roof. Platforms 4–11 in the centre of the station are the main platforms for longer-distance trains which stretch down to terminate in front of the main station building. Platforms 5–10 serve trains running via Tikkurila to Tampere, St Petersburg and other points north and east, while platforms 11–12 serve express trains via the Espoo line to Turku. Platforms 12–19 are on the west side and serve local trains on the Espoo and Vantaankoski routes, again their tracks stop short of the main station roof. The tracks funnel into separate express and local tracks for both the Espoo and the Tikkurila routes with the express tracks in the middle and the local tracks on the outside, aligning with their respective platforms. This gives eight principal tracks but there is an additional ninth express track for the Tikkurila route out through the Pasila station, the first stop out, about five minutes or 3 km north of the central railway station. All trains stop at Pasila.

The central railway station serves as a central hub for Finnish transport. There are many platforms for local buses on both the west and the east sides of the main station building. The Helsinki Metro Rautatientori station is located under the main station building, linked through the Asematunneli pedestrian underpass and underground shopping centre complex, which has entrances in the main hall of the station and at various points in the surrounding streets. The majority of Helsinki's tram routes pass in front of or to the west of the station. The Helsinki central bus station is located at Kamppi Center, about 400 m, or one metro stop, to the west of the railway station.

Although the Helsinki-Vantaa airport is reachable from the station by the P and I local trains, there are also regular bus connections between the station and the airport: two municipal buses (415 and 615) operated by HSL, and a private express bus operated by Finnair, where HSL tickets are not accepted.

The main maintenance area for the Finnish Railways is located in the fork between the Espoo and the Tikkurila lines, just north of the Pasila station. The loading point for cars onto car-carrying trains has been moved from the central railway station to the Pasila station. The old steam locomotive roundhouse facility still stands just to the south of Pasila station and is used for sundry functions. The old steam locomotive roundhouse facility still stands just to the south of Pasila station and is used for various functions.

History and renovation

The first railway station in Helsinki was built in 1860, as Finland's first railway between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna was opened. The station's plans were drawn by the Swedish architect Carl Albert Edelfelt. However, as the popularity of railways grew, the station turned out to be too small, and a contest was organised in 1904 with the intention of producing plans for a new station. The contest received 21 entries, and was won by Eliel Saarinen, with a pure national romanticist design, which sparked off a vigorous debate about the architecture of major public buildings, with demands for a modern, rational style. Saarinen himself abandoned romanticism altogether and re-designed the station completely. The new design was finished in 1909 and the station was opened in 1919.

President of Finland Kyösti Kallio died at the station on 19 December 1940 of a heart attack, as he was going back home to Nivala after having retired as President. Legend says he died in the arms of Marshal Mannerheim.

The clock tower side of the station was damaged in a fire on 14 June 1950.

In the 1960s, the underground Asematunneli pedestrian underpass and underground shopping centre complex was built south of the station. The first surveillance cameras in the station hall were installed in the spring of 1968.

The first electric train arrived at the station on 13 January 1969. After testing, regular electric train traffic was started between Helsinki and Kirkkonummi railway station on 26 January 1969.

The Rautatientori metro station, connected to the railway station via Asematunneli, was built part of the Helsinki Metro construction work. It was among the first stations of the metro to be opened in 1982.

In 2000, a glass roof, which had already been in the original drawings by Eliel Saarinen, was built over the railway station's central platforms, although to a new design. In 2003, the shopping wing Kauppakuja was opened along with a hotel.

The area between Parliament House, Helsinki and the passenger station, to the west of the station, contained the VR warehouses, a rail-freight complex. Its original use had long been discontinued in 2006, when it was torn down to make space for the Helsinki Music Centre.

One of the tracks branching to the west just before the central railway station bypassed the warehouses. It was a freight route, the Helsinki harbour rail, that passed through the inner west side of Helsinki to the West Harbour, and earlier, all the way around the Helsinki peninsula to Katajanokka. The remaining section of the branch was discontinued in 2009, when sea freight operations were moved to the new Vuosaari Harbour from old harbours. Its right-of-way was converted into a pedestrian and bicycle route.

Presidential lounge

One of the station's less known features is a private 50-square-metre (540 sq ft) waiting lounge exclusively for the use of the President of Finland and his/her official guests. The lounge, featuring furniture designed by Eliel Saarinen, has two entrances, a bigger one leading outside to the Rautatientori square and a smaller one leading to the main station hall. The lounge was first completed in 1911 and was originally intended for the private use of the Emperor of Russia, but the First World War delayed its official inauguration to 1919, at which point it had been converted into a temporary military hospital, and was afterwards given to the use of the Finnish President.

Incidents

Over the years, there have been a few incidents at the station. However, no lives have been lost due to them:

4 January 2010 accident

On 4 January 2010, four empty passenger carriages overran the buffers of platform 13. The carriages had broken free of their train during a shunting manoeuvre and ran under gravity down the gentle hill from Linnunlaulu (halfway between Helsinki Central and Pasila railway station) before being diverting into an empty platform and impacting the buffers at 20–30 kilometres per hour.

The eight-carriage train arriving from the depot had been due to form the 08:12 departure running from Helsinki to Kajaani, through central Finland via Lahti and Kuopio. The formation which broke away consisted of three double-decker "Intercity 2" carriages, followed by a single-decker restaurant car. The runaway carriages were quickly detected and deliberately routed into one of the shorter commuter platforms (fitted with large concrete barriers beyond the buffers) in order to minimise damage to the main station area. Passengers aboard an adjacent commuter train waiting to depart were ordered to leave their train and run away from the area and announcements were made over the station's loudspeaker system. The first carriage of the four runaway cars mounted the concrete barrier. Members of the public in an Ernst & Young office beyond the end of the platform and those in the Holiday Inn hotel above the platforms all escaped without injury. The first carriage then struck the hotel's conference room, causing extensive damage to the room. The conductor aboard the train as it came in sustained light injuries to their arm, with nobody else injured.

Services had resumed—at a reduced level by the afternoon—following repairs to damage to the overhead line. The Finnish Accident Investigation Board announced that they would proceed with an investigation into why the brakes had not automatically applied. A restaurant car and one of the passenger carriages were towed to the depot by a diesel locomotive during the course of the night, after which the front carriage was partially dragged back out of the hotel building. The building that had taken the force of the crash was deemed to be structurally sound.

On 18 January 2010 the Finnish Accident Investigation Board made available their interim report which concluded that the incident had been caused by a combination of bad weather and then human error. Initially, snow and ice had caused the front carriages to detach from the rest of the train; followed by the guard having released the brakes manually—not realizing that the two halves of the train were no longer coupled.