The Pihlajavesi railway station ( fi, Pihlajaveden rautatieasema, sv, Pihlajavesi järnvägsstation) is located in the town of

Keuruu Keuruu (; sv, Keuru) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Finland region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The popul ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

(formerly the municipality of Pihlajavesi), in the village of Pihlajavesi. It is located along the

Haapamäki–Seinäjoki railway The Haapamäki–Seinäjoki railway is a railway running between the Haapamäki railway station and the Seinäjoki railway station in Finland. It is part of the historical Tampere–Vaasa railway; its other segments as known today include Tampere� ...

, and its neighboring stations are

Haapamäki Haapamäki is a village in the municipality of Keuruu, Finland. It is historically an important meeting point of major railway lines, which converge at Haapamäki railway station. It is from Haapamäki to the center of Keuruu and to the city of ...

in the south and Myllymäki in the north.

History

During the building of the Tampere–Vaasa railway, the municipal authorities of Pihlajavesi made an appeal to the Railway Administration for the opening of a station in its territory. It cited the long distance between the stations of Keuruu – contemporarily known as Haapamäki – and

Ähtäri Ähtäri ( sv, Etseri) is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the South Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Ähtäri is located southeast of ...

, and estate owner Isak Valkeajärvi pledged to donate the land required free of charge. On 28 December 1880, the decision to build a road from the Pihlajavesi church to the future station was made. The project of building a bridge over river Koipijoki proved controversial among the estate owners of the municipality. Pihlajavesi became one of the original stations of the railway, being opened on 29 September 1883 as a ''pysäkki'' (a station of lower significance, translating to "stop").

List of stationmasters

The following people served as the stationmasters at Pihlajavesi in 1887–1970: * Johan Alfred Holm (1887–1888) * Karl Alfred Hjelt (1893–1895) * Johan Ulrik Nörlund (1895–1909) * Oskar Alarik Gröndahl (1909–1926) * Väinö Gustaf Nikolainen (1928–1929) * Edvard Alarik Lybeck (1929–1930) * Väinö Verneri Louhivaara (1930–1937) * Hugo Henrik Puusaari (1937–1952) * Bruuno Vilhelm Helminen (1952–1966) * Matti Aatami Ravantti (1967–1970)

Architecture

The station building in Pihlajavesi was constructed according to the stock blueprints for the smaller ''pysäkki'' stations on the Tampere–Vaasa railway in 1881–1883. After its promotion to a class V station in 1888, it was expanded according to plans from

Bruno Granholm Bruno Ferdinand Granholm (May 14, 1857 in Myrskylä – September 29, 1930) was a Finnish architect. He served as the chief architect of Rautatiehallitus (The Railroad Board) between 1892 and 1926. Many of the station buildings he designed are ...

in 1902. Some of the finer details of the design have been simplified and the doors changed since then, though the design is still reflective of its state in 1902. The station building suffered a fire in the 1980s, which prompted the construction and use of a temporary "

shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...

" building until the original station was repaired.

Services

VR Group VR-Group Plc ( fi, VR-Yhtymä Oyj, sv, VR-Group Abp), commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 co ...

operates two daily regional train services in each direction on the route

Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...

–

Seinäjoki Seinäjoki (; "Wall River"; la, Wegelia, formerly sv, Östermyra) is a city located in South Ostrobothnia, Finland; east of Vaasa, north of Tampere, west of Jyväskylä and southwest of Oulu. Seinäjoki originated around the Östermyra bru ...

, all of which call in Pihlajavesi. These services are operated with Dm12 railbuses. The station does not have ticketings services nor a VR ticket vending machine, though it does have high platforms. The station building is not open for use by passengers.

References

External links