Budapest Nyugati station (, ; ), generally referred to simply as Nyugati, is one of the three main

railway terminal A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing such a ...

s in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Hungary. The station is on the Pest side of Budapest, accessible by the 4 and 6 tramline and the M3 metro line.

Layout

The station is a stub-end terminal, with the tracks exiting to the northeast. There are nine platforms serving seventeen tracks. There is a

metro station A metro station or subway station is a train station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the syste ...

beneath the railway station; buses and trams are accessed at street level.

History

The station was designed by Auguste de Serres and was built by the Eiffel Company. It was opened on 28 October 1877. It replaced another station, which was the terminus of Hungary's first railway line, the Pest–

Vác Vác (; ; ; ) is a thousand-year old city in Pest county in Hungary with approximately 35,000 inhabitants. The archaic spelling of the name is ''Vácz''. Location Vác is located north of Budapest on the eastern bank of the Danube river, below t ...

line (constructed in 1846). This building was demolished in order to construct the Grand Boulevard. The station got its name from the adjacent Western Square ('Nyugati tér'), a major intersection where Teréz körút (''Theresia Boulevard''), Szent István körút (''

Saint Stephen Stephen (; ) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first martyr of Christianity."St ...

Boulevard''),

Váci út Váci út (, Váci Avenue, lit. ''Road to Vác'') is one of the widest and busiest avenues in Budapest, Hungary. It is about long and has four to eight traffic lanes. Location It starts by the Grand Boulevard next to Nyugati Railway Station ...

(''Váci Avenue''), and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út ('' Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Avenue'') converge. The square also serves as a transport hub with several bus routes, tram routes 4 and 6, and a station on M3 of the

Budapest Metro The Budapest Metro (, ) is the rapid transit system in the Hungary, Hungarian capital Budapest. Opened in 1896, it is the world's second oldest electrified underground railway after the City and South London Railway of 1890, now part of the Lon ...

. Since 2007

Hungarian State Railways The Hungarian State Railways (, , formally MÁV Magyar Államvasutak Zártkörűen Működő Részvénytársaság (MÁV Zrt.). The full official name of the company is MÁV-csoport () now commonly known as MÁV) is the Hungary, Hungarian natio ...

(MÁV) has operated regular services between the terminal and

Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (, ) , formerly known as Budapest Ferihegy International Airport and commonly denoted as Ferihegy (), is the international airport serving the Hungarian capital city of Budapest. It is the largest of ...

Terminal 1, although Terminal 1 has been closed since 2012 and all departures and arrivals have been consolidated in Terminal 2A and 2B, which is 4 kilometers away. Beside the terminal and partially above its open area there is the

WestEnd City Center The Westend Shopping Center is a shopping centre built by Hungarian TriGránit Ltd. located next to the Western Railway Station, in Budapest, Hungary. Opened on 12 November 1999, it is known for having been the largest mall in Central Europe ...

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

. Inside the station is a McDonald's restaurant which has been described as the "most elegant" McDonald's in the world. The music video for Gwen Stefani's 2008 single '' Early Winter'' was partly shot at Nyugati. Starting in May 2016 the key scenes of the movie '' Terminal'' were shot over 27 nights. Certain parts of the historic terminal building have recently been renovated. More renovations and changes to the immediate surroundings of the building are planned based on plans by London-based architectural firm Grimshaw.

Services

the following services stop at Budapest Nyugati: *

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

: services to (via ), , , and . *

EuroCity EuroCity (EC) is an international Train categories in Europe, train category and brand for European inter-city rail, inter-city trains that cross international borders and meet criteria covering comfort, speed, food service, and cleanliness. E ...

: services to , , and . *

EuroNight EuroNight, abbreviated EN, is a European train category that denotes many mainline national and international night train services within the Western and Central European inter-city rail network. Overview The classification and name were brough ...

: overnight service to . *

InterRegio The InterRegio, often shortened to IR, is a train categories in Europe, train category for mainly domestic train services in use in some European countries, with Swiss Federal Railways operating the most dense network. InterRegio trains are semi ...

: service to . * : hourly service to . * / / : frequent service to . * / / : frequent service to . * / : frequent service to . * / : frequent service to .

References

External links

Nyugati Railway Station and Royal Waiting Room
{{Budapest Railway stations in Budapest Railway stations in Austria-Hungary opened in 1877 Gustave Eiffel