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A station building, also known as a
head house A head house or headhouse may be an enclosed building attached to an open-sided shed, or the aboveground part of a subway station. Markets In the 18th and early 19th centuries, head houses were often civic buildings such as town halls or courtho ...
, is the main building of a passenger
railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers. A station building is a component of a station, which can include tracks, platforms, an overpass or underpass, and a
train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...
. Normally, a station building will be of adequate size for the type of service that is to be performed. It may range from a simple single-storey building with limited services to passengers to a large building with many indoor spaces providing many services. Some station buildings are of monumental proportions and styles. Both in the past and in recent times, especially when constructed for a modern high-speed rail network, a station building may even be a true masterpiece of
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
. A typical railway station building will have a side entrance hall off the road or square where the station is located. Near the entrance will be a ticket counter, ticket machines, or both. There will also be one or more waiting rooms, often divided by class, and equipped with seats and luggage stands. From the waiting rooms, there will usually be direct access to rail passenger services. Medium to large size station buildings will often also have offices for rail staff involved in the management and operation of trains. Smaller or more rural stations will have no station building at all.Middleton, ''Encyclopedia of North American Railroads.'' (2007). pp 126-44


Elements


Creation of the form

Several decades were needed to find a formula for station building architecture that would be easily recognizable in the urban space, like that of churches and
town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
s. The first station buildings gave no special emphasis to their function, as they were essentially a variation on the house or office building. That makes it, for example, difficult to identify the function of the station building in the original Manchester terminus of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the first inter-city railway in the world. It opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in England. It was also the first railway to rely exclusively ...
or in the two railway stations in Vienna shown below, but they have been given the characteristics of a public building. Often, the earliest station buildings were so modest that the main visible element of the station was the train shed, such as for the first station in
Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's 2 ...
, Germany. Some early station building design teams tried to develop representative characteristics. Initially, this was by use of traditional architectural symbols, primarily related to the form of a "gate", such as a portico, a
triumphal arch A triumphal arch is a free-standing monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, cro ...
or Propylaea. But none of them (except perhaps the triumphal arch) have proved to be particularly suitable for expression of specific railway station functions. One of the early ideas was to form the station building porticos to highlight the driveway and enlarge the scale of the dominant element of the facade. This motif is already present in the Newcastle Central station building (1850), then eagerly used in other stations in the UK. It became an even more prominent motif in the twentieth century, shaping the facade of the great railway station
Milano Centrale Milano Centrale ( it, Stazione Milano Centrale) is the main railway station of the city of Milan, Italy, and is the largest railway station in Europe by volume. The station is a terminus and located at the northern end of central Milan. It was o ...
. In British railway stations, where - thanks to constant movement of trains - the exchange of passengers takes place rapidly, the practice is not to have large station buildings. To some extent, the railway hotel buildings (or sometimes railway board offices) serve part of the station's function. These structures do not reveal, however, many features of railway stations. The one feature that can be found in many of them worldwide is a canopy over the driveway, usually made of iron (e.g. part of the former London Victoria ''LBSCR'' station). Among the attributes of the station, it is difficult to identify an element more appropriate than the
station clock A station clock is a clock at a railway station that provides a standard indication of time to both passengers and railway staff. A railway station will often have several station clocks. They can be found in a clock tower, in the booking hall o ...
. Not everyone carried a
wristwatch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...
, so it was a necessity. It can be placed not only inside the station building, but also as a distinctive feature of the building's facade. In countries not confined to the classical architectural tradition, station building designers soon began to use the theme of the clock tower, taken over from the town hall or church. This theme sometimes served more utilitarian purposes - there were also some
water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towers often operate in conju ...
s. The clock tower become particularly popular around the start of the 20th century. Along with a covered driveway, it may be a distinguishing characteristic of railway station buildings. Over time, growing volumes of traffic prompted the construction of the railway stations of increasing scale. More and more stations also satisfied the ambitions of the city, railway boards, and countries whose railways have had to shape an appropriate image of the country. Around the start of the 20th century, a trend towards the deliberate use of architectural forms which give large and high spaces, often modeled on classical forms from the Roman Empire.


Other elements of station architecture

Railway station architecture is not just the architecture of the station building. It includes the design of separate platforms and canopies, or the
train shed A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...
(i.e. an overall canopy for the platforms and tracks), if any. Also, shelters can impart the characteristic face of the station and be more than a utilitarian form of construction. Architects also create railway station towers, and buildings and equipment associated with the movement of trains: control rooms, and even signals, sometimes grouped together on the platforms over the tracks. The continued existence of these objects, especially the control room, is sometimes at risk when traffic safety technologies are updated.


See also

*
Airport terminal An airport terminal is a building at an airport where passengers transfer between ground transportation and the facilities that allow them to board and disembark from an Fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft. Within the terminal, passengers purchase ...


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Station Building Railway stations