Warszawa Gdańska station (also known as Dworzec Gdański; literally

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

station) is a railway station in northern

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, Poland. The name of the station derives from its past as the main station serving trains towards

. Currently, trains in that direction use the main

Cross-City Line The Cross-City Line is a commuter rail line in the West Midlands region of England. It runs for from Redditch and Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, its two southern termini, to Lichfield, Staffordshire, its northern terminus, via Birmingham New Str ...

and the

Warszawa Centralna railway station Warszawa Centralna, in English known as Warsaw Central Station, is the primary railway station in Warsaw, Poland. Completed in 1975, the station is located on the Warsaw Cross-City Line and features four underground island platforms with eight tr ...

. It is located on the "Northern Line" that runs between Central Warsaw and the city's

Żoliborz Żoliborz () is one of the northern districts of the city of Warsaw. It is located directly to the north of the City Centre, on the left bank of the Vistula river. It has approximately 50,000 inhabitants and is one of the smallest boroughs of W ...

district to the north. It serves as a transportation hub for regional trains departing the station. It connects with the

Warsaw Metro The Warsaw Metro ( pl, Metro Warszawskie) is a rapid transit underground system serving the Polish capital Warsaw. It currently consists of two lines, the north-south Line M1 which links central Warsaw with its densely populated northern and sout ...

's Dworzec Gdański stop, located below the railway station, and a number of nearby tram and bus stops. The Warsaw Metro has received EU funding to build a pedestrian tunnel linking the metro station to the railway station. The railway station is located some 3.5 km north of the main rail line crossing the city linking

Warszawa Wschodnia Warszawa Wschodnia, in English Warsaw East, is one of the most important railway stations in Warsaw, Poland. Its more official name is ''Warszawa Wschodnia Osobowa'' (translated as ''Warsaw East Passenger''). It is located on the eastern side of th ...

Warszawa Centralna Warszawa Centralna, in English known as Warsaw Central Station, is the primary railway station in Warsaw, Poland. Completed in 1975, the station is located on the Warsaw Cross-City Line and features four underground island platforms with eight tr ...

and

Warszawa Zachodnia Warszawa Zachodnia station, in English Warsaw West, is a railway and long-distance bus station in Warsaw, Poland on the border of Ochota and Wola districts. The railway station is the westernmost terminus of the Warsaw Cross-City Line. It serves ...

railway stations and as such is sometimes used as a reserve station, used by trains during track works on the main line, but that is quite rare, as there are two tracks in each direction on the main line. Currently (2011), it is used exclusively by Koleje Mazowieckie for services KM9 to/from

Ciechanów Ciechanów is a city in north-central Poland. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Ciechanów Voivodeship. Since 1999, it has been situated in the Masovian Voivodeship. As of December 2021, it has a population of 43,495. History The se ...

and

Działdowo Działdowo (german: Soldau) (Old Prussian: Saldawa) is a town in northern Poland with 20,935 inhabitants as of December 2021, the capital of Działdowo County. As part of Masuria, it is situated in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (since 1999), Dz ...

via Legionowo, Modlin, Nasielsk, where the train changes number, Mława (only for trains continue to Działdowo, from/to starting/terminating at Warszawa Wola). Trains continuing to Działdowo, wait in Ciechanów for 50 minutes. Some trains terminate at Legionowo and Modlin.

History

The original station was built around 1880 under the name of Vistulan Main Train Station ( pl, Główny Dworzec Kolei Nadwiślańskiej) and served a local line running along the

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

river northwards. In the early 20th century, with the opening of a railway bridge over the river south of

Warsaw Citadel Warsaw Citadel (Polish: Cytadela Warszawska) is a 19th-century fortress in Warsaw, Poland. It was built by order of Tsar Nicholas I after the suppression of the 1830 November Uprising in order to bolster imperial Russian control of the city. I ...

(directly to the east of the station; the bridge was constructed around 1870, but was initially used by the Russian Army exclusively), it was renamed ''Warszawa Kowelska'' (Warsaw

Kovel Kovel (, ; pl, Kowel; yi, קאוולע / קאוולי ) is a city in Volyn Oblast (province), in northwestern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Kovel Raion (district). Population: Kovel gives its name to one of the oldest runi ...

train station) and started serving as a junction between the

Warsaw Główna Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

and Warszawa Wileńska stations. Until then the passengers travelling from

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

had to leave the train station at Warszawa Wileńska, take a tram to the city centre and take another train of the European standard gauge (1435 mm) on the Warsaw-Vienna railway. The Warsaw Kovel station also served as the main supply station for the Russian garrison stationed in the

. During the withdrawal of Russian troops from Warsaw in August 1915, the station was demolished, along with the bridge to which it led. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

both were rebuilt, and the station was renamed ''Warszawa Gdańska'' (Warsaw Gdańsk station), named after the city of

. After 1933, with the opening of the

cross-city line The Cross-City Line is a commuter rail line in the West Midlands region of England. It runs for from Redditch and Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, its two southern termini, to Lichfield, Staffordshire, its northern terminus, via Birmingham New Str ...

, linking three main Warsaw train stations, the Warsaw Gdańsk station lost its importance as a transit station and began serving as a station for local and suburban trains. After 1942, the western part (adjacent to the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

) of the freight station had been adapted to become the Umschlagplatz (collection point) — the deportation facility for Warsaw's

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, due to the complete destruction of many Warsaw's railway stations, Warsaw Gdańsk was used as a temporary station for long-distance trains, including, until the 1970s, trains passing through Warsaw between the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and the west. Among the notable trains to stop there was the Ost-West Express from

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...

Hook of Holland Hook of Holland ( nl, Hoek van Holland, ) is a town in the southwestern corner of Holland, hence the name; ''hoek'' means "corner" and was the word in use before the word ''kaap'' – "cape", from Portuguese ''cabo'' – became Dutch. The English t ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

; the Chopin to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

; and the Praha to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

trains. As such, it was the main location through which people expelled in the aftermath of the

Polish 1968 political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

left Poland. The events of 1968 are now commemorated by a stone tablet on the eastern wall of the building with the inscription by

Henryk Grynberg Henryk Grynberg (born 1936 in Warsaw) is a Polish writer and actor who survived the Nazi occupation. He is a novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright and essayist who had authored more than thirty books of prose and poetry and two dramas. G ...

''Here they left more than they had''. Between 1958 and 1959 the new building of the station was constructed. It was the first station built in Warsaw after World War II, and it was at the time the most modern station in Warsaw. The building stood until 1984, when it was destroyed in a fire. The station was rebuilt in a few years with some changes - a new story was added. In the 1970s, the station's long-distance services were completely taken over by the newly built Warszawa Centralna, and Warszawa Gdańska became a minor station for suburban trains.

Gallery

Image:Kovel rail station in Warsaw 1877.jpg, Station building in 1877 File:Dworzec Gdański i płonące getto 1943.jpg, Gdanska railroad station looking toward the Warsaw Ghetto Uprsing in 1943 File:Warszawa Gdańska widok w wiaduktu 01.JPG, Warszawa Gdańska platforms, view to the west. March 2012

External links

*
Vintage train at the station

Modern view of the neglected part of the station

Warszawa Kowelska on an old postcard
(pre-1915) {{DEFAULTSORT:Warszawa Gdanska Station Gdanska Railway stations opened in 1880 Railway stations served by Koleje Mazowieckie Railway stations served by Szybka Kolej Miejska (Warsaw) Żoliborz Śródmieście, Warsaw