Location of the railway and the station

There were four different options for the railway line and three possible locations for the station. In 1857 option number 4 (shown in blue) was chosen to be built, and the Helsinki Central Station was decided to be built in Kluuvi.

A 1853 railway project proposed the northern edge of the Hietalahdentori square as the location of the Helsinki railway station. A later proposal in 1857 was at the vicinity of the Turku barracks, and a third option was the environment of the Kluuvi well. Investigation of the new railway line in summer and autumn showed how difficult it would be to build a railway into the city of Helsinki, which was located at the point of a peninsula. The research resulted in four different options of the railway line. These options differed greatly in cost. The original plan included 40,800 Russian roubles for the main station of the railway, but the most expensive option was estimated at 162,000 roubles.^{[12]: 58 [10]: 58}

The cheapest option would have had the railway to make a curve after Pasila and go around the Töölönlahti bay. The second option would have had the railway go directly west from Pasila past the Töölö sugar factory. The third option would have passed Pasila entirely and continued around Töölönlahti. All these options would have located the station to the south of the Turku barracks. In the fourth option, the track would go from Pasila straight across Töölönlahti and the Kaisaniemi Park to Kluuvi, with the station located immediately after the Kluuvi well. This option was the most expensive, costing about 107,970 roubles. Of the four options, it required the most of blasting the bedrock and filling the Kluuvinlahti bay.^{[12]: 58 [13]: 10}

The three first options required dismantling villas and other buildings from the shore of the Töölönlahti bay and building railway tracks on beautiful and farmed land from the environment of the city. In addition, the costs of the compulsory purchase of the land would have been significantly greater than in the fourth option. Another concern was that a steep curve directly after the railway station would cause more wear on both the tracks and the train wheels. This would result in danger of the train tilting, causing a decrease of the efficiency of the engine. The option for the straight railway line had the benefit of an unobstructed view from the station to the traffic on the tracks. The fourth option received the most support, and it was accepted on 26 November 1857.^{[12]: 59, 66 [13]: 10}

The choice was perhaps also influenced by Knut Stjernvall serving as the technical director of the railway company at the time, whose stepfather Carl Johan Walleen owned Villa Hakasalmi on the western shore of the Töölönlahti bay. The three other options would have required dismantling the villa.^{[11][14]: 13}

Because of the decision, citizens of Helsinki started worrying about the fate of the Kaisaniemi Park located next to the Kluuvi well. It was clear that the railway would override part of the park area. Per the request of the citizens, the railway line was moved slightly to the east in 1859, in order to preserve the two large and beautiful hills in the park.^[12]: 59

Filling the Kluuvinlahti bay

The area where the station was planned to be built was originally seabed. In the 19th century the area was a muddy and stinky water area used as a dump and a public outhouse. Filling the Kluuvinlahti bay originally started already in the 1830s, but the filling really came into action when the railway was being built.^[15]

The bay was confined at Hakasalmi, ditches were dug into the Kluuvi swamp, and a stone-walled assembly pool was built behind the dam, from where the water was pumped into Töölönlahti by wind power. Many horse cart loads of sand were dumped into the area during the decades.^[16]: 9

According to the plans in the 1830s, the area to the north of Kaivokatu and to the west of Mikonkatu was to be divided into two blocks, which were named Hyeena ("hyaena") and Hilleri ("polecat"), separated by the street Hakasalmenkatu, now known as Keskuskatu. The decision to build the railway decided the fate of the Hyeena and Hilleri blocks. Knut Stjernvall made the final railway plan in 1859. He proposed that a wide market square should be built on the place of the Hyeena block east to the railway yard.^[14]: 13 The few buildings left in the Hyeena block were dismantled, and it was changed into what is now the Rautatientori square. Construction of the first railway station in Finland started at the edge of the Hilleri block.^{[17]: 92–93}

The construction of the railway station had a great impact on the Helsinki cityscape. The railway was piled with large logs, and stones were laid on the edge of the bay. Aspen trees had to be cut down from the Kaisaniemi Park to make way for the railway, but the park was preserved whenever it was possible to do so.^[12]: 68 Rock blasted off the Linnunlaulu cliff was sunk into the Töölönlahti bay beneath the railway tracks being constructed.^[12]: 71 The railway terracing over the Töölönlahti bay was completed in March 1861. For water traffic, two underpass bridges were built vaulted from stone. The larger underpass bridge had a size of 7 cubits and the smaller one had a size of 3 cubits.^[12]: 68 The rails for the railway tracks were bought from the United Kingdom, and they arrived by steamship into the South Harbour in November 1857.^[12]: 71

Exterior

The third class waiting hall at the old railway station in Helsinki in 1909. Photograph by Signe Brander.

In the first designs the original Helsinki railway station had two floors and an octagonal clock tower at its northern end.^[22]: 25 However, the station was actually built with three floors and no clock tower.^[21] Architecturally, it was a mix of Gothic Revival architecture and Renaissance Revival architecture, which were among the styles commonly used for other railway stations in Europe at the time.^{[22]: 25 [12]: 100}

The first railway station in Helsinki was a sort of romantic picturesque manor, whose small size and simple appearance was also an act of honouring the emperor and Saint Petersburg.^[8]: 146 The Tudor-style brick and plaster station building was clad in natural stone.^{[12]: 100 [19]: 25} In the original designs the station was to be clad in brick, but in August 1860 plaster was added to the exterior to better withstand the weather.^[10]: 12 In the station facade, Renaissance Revival architecture showed in the ledges between the floors and in the windows grouping into axles. Gothic Revival architecture shoed in the tower aisles, corner towers on the roof and Tudor-style arches at the windows and doors.^[22]: 19

It has been estimated that Edelfelt gained inspiration to the Helsinki railway station from his visit to the United Kingdom, from the architecture of Carl Axel Setterberg in Vaasa and from the Petergof railway station in Russia designed by Nicholas Benois, with many features in common with the Helsinki railway station.^[22]: 21

Interior

The entrance to the Helsinki railway station was at the middle of the building, and opposite it were the baggage office, ticket sales and other station facilities.^[22]: 21

Unlike today, spaces at stations and in trains were divided by social class, and so stations had separate waiting halls and restaurants for the first, second and third classes. The waiting halls and restaurants were located at both ends of the ground floor of the building.^[22]: 15

The southern end of the building hosted the first and second class waiting halls, while the northern end hosted the waiting hall for the third class. Both waiting halls were attached to their own class-specific restaurants. The station had no central hall, instead passengers had to go around through the waiting halls to reach the platforms.^{[10]: 12 [22]: 21}

The ground floor also hosted railway station offices, an official room, a lamp room and a women's toilet. The second floor hosted the residences of the railway chief, the station chief and the administrative officers. The third floor hosted the residences of the caretaker and the engineer mechanic. The third floor also hosted storage space.^[12]: 100 Unlike other railway stations in Finland, the Helsinki railway station had gas lighting, as the city's first gas works had recently been built right next to the station, at the place of the current Postitalo main post office building.^[10]: 12

Events

The first train from Helsinki to Hämeenlinna left on 31 January 1862.^[19]: 12 Regular train traffic started on 17 March 1862.^[23]: 10 According to schedule, a passenger train left from Helsinki to Hämeenlinna every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 o'clock in the morning. Trains on return trips left for Helsinki every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 7 o'clock in the morning. Already in October 1862 the schedule was changed to daily trips in both directions.^[19]: 27 A total of 27,241 train tickets were sold at the Helsinki railway station in 1863, and a total of 23,977 tickets were sold at other stations for trips to Helsinki.^[24]

The Diet of Finland was held for the first time in 1863, with emperor Alexander II of Russia attending. The city of Helsinki did not have a large enough space to host the event, so it was held at the station hall of the railway station. A temporary floor was built over the tracks and the roof was covered with floral vines. The swamp, unfit for public display, had been hidden under a birch bark mat. A couple of thousand invited guests attended the event.^{[17]: 92–93}

The northern part of the Kluuvinlahti bay, to the west of the railway track, was filled in at the end of the 19th century to make space for the railway yard and the warehouses.^[15] The Helsinki harbour rail southward of the Helsinki railway station was built in 1894, and the VR warehouses were built in 1899.^[16]: 13

The shore of the Kluuvinlahti bay had always been a cheap and disliked area. The construction of the railway station at the area greatly increased the value of the area and led to an immense construction boom in the entire city of Helsinki, lasting from the 1880s to the 1920s. Businessmen bought lots at the former shores of the Kluuvinlahti bay along the Helsinki Railway Square and the Mikonkatu street.^[16]: 14

Design

Gustaf Sandberg: The Rautatientori square in the early 1900s.

The floor plan of the new Helsinki railway statio in the early 1900s.

Helsinki's first railway station had been measured to a small capital city with about 20 thousand inhabitants in the early 1860s.^[25]: 63 Urbanisation of Helsinki in the late 19th century brought along many changes. Between the 1860s and the 1900s the population of the city grew by almost 70 thousand people. Railway traffic at the Helsinki railway station increased, and the need for space by the railway administration also increased. As the popularity of railways grew, the original station turned out to be too small.^[26]: 183

The railway administration started designing a new station building in Helsinki in 1895. Terminus stations such as the Helsinki station at the time were usually U-shaped buildings at the end of the tracks. Bruno Granholm, the architect of the railway administration, designed the administrative building, and the railway administration made the design of the new railway station.^[26]: 183 In Granholm's plan, the station building was already at the location and shape it ended up being built.^[22]: 48

The railway administration had already ordered a design for the new station building from the German architect C. O. Gleim, who had won the design contests for the Stockholm Central Station and the Gothenburg Central Station in 1898. The railway administration originally intended to design the new Helsinki railway station unnoticed, without holding an open design contest.^{[27]: 16 [28]: 48}

A contest was organised in 1902 with the intention of producing plans for a new station. The contest sought to attract the attention of the railway workers to the difficult design task and to the architects capable of such a task.^[27]: 16 It also encouraged the railway administration to hold an open design contest for the new railway station in Helsinki.^[28]: 48

The contest did not lead to practical actions, but because of the discussion it caused and the activity of the Finnish Architecture Club, the railway administration decided to hold a new design contest for the facades of the new Helsinki railway station and the administrative building of the railway administration.^[26]: 163

The railway administration had designed the floor plan of the new railway station as a U-shaped building surrounding the railway tracks.^{[26]: 163 [28]: 48} The contestants received a floor plan designed by architect Bruno Granholm about the station building as well as the office and administrative wing attached to it. The floor plan bore a close resemblance to that of the 1888 Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, which the contents were already familiar with.^[25]: 61 The facade of the station building was defined to be built of natural stone, and that of the administrative building of plastering with a conservative amount of natural stone.^[29]: 10 There would be a large central hall at the centre of the station, in connection to the main entrance. The main entrance had to face the Kaivokatu street. The other entrances were at the end of the perpendicular platform at the end of the tracks at the Rautatientori square and at the western end of the station. The tracks were required to be covered with a roof made of steel, with a cut of it provided as an attachment to the contest.^[22]: 49

The design contest was judged by architects Sebastian Gripenberg, Hugo Lindberg and Gustaf Nyström, as well as the main director of the railway administration, August Granfelt.^[26]: 281 The contest was held a couple of years after the design contest of the National Museum of Finland, and it attracted a great deal of attention and interest. The new construction art of the National Museum was seen as romantic, picturesque and as nationally Finnish as possible. This very Finnish design style caused a lot of discussion, and there was desire to try it on the railway station too, without thinking whether the museum and the station would have required different symbolic forms.^[26]: 163

The contest received 21 entries. All entries except that by Sigurd Frosterus were of a national romantic style. They had heavy roofs and low walls, the doors and windows were small, and there were lots of towers. All of the entries had an arched window on the main facade at the central hall. All entries featured a tall tower, which the floor plan did not require, but did allow. Sigurd Frosterus's facade design Eureka was an Art Nouveau building very different from the other entries, and the judges disliked his entry.^[22]: 52

The contest was won by Eliel Saarinen's entry Bevingadt hjul på en jordglob – Maapallolla seisova siipipyörä ("A winged wheel standing on a globe"),^[26]: 281 with a pure national romanticist design, with sturdy walls, eight bears, one tall sharp-pointed tower and numerous smaller towers, as well as a beautifully drawn stone portal to the main platform.^{[26]: 164 [27]: 21} Its appearance bore a close resemblance to the facade of the National Museum, which did not please all of the architects.^[27]: 16

Architects Sigurd Frosterus and Gustaf Strengell thought Saarinen's entry was old-fashioned and demanded sense and rationality to the architecture of the railway station.^{[27]: 16 [26]: 164} According to them, the station symbolised modern times, which had nothing to do with the medieval design fashion. The design sparked off a vigorous debate about the architecture of major public buildings, with demands for a modern, rational style. The debate went so far that even cartoons mocking the new railway station appeared in magazines. These cartoons showed the entire station having changed to look more like a medieval stone church than a popular railway station. The bear sculptures had grown, and one of them had jumped down onto the street to chase people. As was typical for Saarinen, he did not participate in the public debate at any point.^{[25]: 67 [22]: 54}

Saarinen later made a complete change to the architecture of the railway station.^[22]: 54 He moved his attention from American or British examples towards German ones and travelled by train all over Europe with his recently wed wife. After coming back home to Finland in 1904 he abandoned romanticism altogether and re-designed the station completely, with a more rational design. The former saddle roof was replaced with a gambrel roof, the semicircular window on the main facade had grown and the entrance hall with the bear statues was removed.^[26]: 164 The new design was finished in 1909 and the new station building was opened in 1919.

Later the floor plan of the station building was freed from the model specified by the railway administration and was made more clear for the purpose of use by large masses of people. This allowed the central hall of the station to be widened.^{[29]: 12 [22]: 54}

Saarinen developed his design for many years and made numerous drawings of the facade of the railway station building. The final solutions for making the station building more rational were born gradually.^[22]: 55 The station's facade bears a close resemblance to that of the 1913 Vyborg railway station, designed by the architecture bureau of Saarinen and Herman Gesellius. The structures and material strength calculations of the building were handled by graduate engineer Jalmari Castrén.^[26]: 57 The central heating and air conditioning in the building were designed by the Danish engineer A. C. Karsten. The electrical plans were made in the electricity technical office of the machine department of the railway administration, with machine engineers Karl Strömberg and Karl Karsten serving as their designers.^[29]: 16

Construction

Pile-driving work at the Helsinki railway station in 1906.

The administrative building was completed in July 1909.

The administrative building of the railway administration was accepted in June 1905, and construction started in December 1905. A total of 20 thousand cubic metres of floors for the building were cast from iron-reinforced concrete, which is thought to have been a new record in Finland at the time.^[29]: 18 The four-floor administrative building was completed in June 1909, and after this the officials of the railway administration moved to this building, the largest office building in the country at the time, decorated according to Eliel Saarinen's plans.^[27]: 21

The final plans for the station building were accepted in 1911.^[26]: 164 In the next year, the two-floor northern end of the old station building was dismantled and pile-driving of the new station building was started.^[27]: 21

The new station building, built at the site of the former Kluuvinlahti bay, had to be driven deep into the ground onto wooden piles.^[29]: 18 The bedrock at the site is at a depth of 20 to 30 metres.^[16]: 9 The wooden piles were mostly driven into the ground with the strength of 30 men, but steam-powered pile drivers were also used in the construction, as well as electric pile drivers, probably for the first time in Finland. The pile-driving work employed about 300 people. About ten thousand wooden piles were driven into the structure of the station building. Only the supportive walls of the clock tower were driven into the bedrock, at a depth of eleven metres.^[29]: 18

The plans for the western express cargo wing were accepted in summer 1912, and masonry and iron concrete work was started in the next summer. At the end of the year, the walls were almost fully masoned, and the granite lining and concrete vaults were also completed.^[29]: 12

The halls received monumental concrete vaults, clearly reflecting into the shape of the building.^[29]: 12 These vaults, utilising the Hennebique iron-reinforced concrete structure patented in France in 1892, were the largest iron-reinforced concrete structure commissioned by the state at the time. The main facade and the stone statues at the main entrance were made of red granite brought from Hanko.^[27]: 16

World War I

World War I caused construction of the new railway station in Helsinki to be paused. The scaffolding around the clock tower remained in place for five years until it was finally dismantled.

The construction of the station was delayed by dramatic times.^[27]: 16 World War I broke out in summer 1914, and Finland was declared in a state of war. The facade of the railway station was already almost complete at the time, but the war caused the construction to be paused for a period of five years. By orders of emperor Nicholas II of Russia, the station was converted into a military hospital for the Russian forces from 1915 to 1916. The halls could fit about a thousand patients.^[27]: 21 At the same time, a temporary departure platform was built at the Töölö railway yard, with trains for fortification employees leaving on the coastal track to Leppävaara and on the main track to Malmi.^[30]: 12

The Finnish Civil War broke out after the Russian Revolution and Finnish independence, with the Reds conquering the station in January 1918. The railway administration had to move to Vaasa, which was the capital of White Finland at the time. In April the Reds retreated from Helsinki to Vyborg, and with the senate's approval German troops conquered Helsinki. This allowed the railway administration to return to the Helsinki railway station and the train traffic to gradually resume operation.^[29]: 20

Completion

The inauguration ceremony of the Helsinki railway station.

After the Civil War had ended, the situation in the country was seen as so serious that the railway engineer Orrman was ordered to oversee the completion of the Helsinki railway station.^[29]: 20 The old station building remained in use until the new station building was completed after spending 12 years under construction. The badly deteriorated old station building, the scaffolding that had been around the clock tower for five years and the fence around the construction site were all dismantled in December 1918.^[27]: 21

The new railway station was inaugurated on Wednesday 5 March 1919, still at an incomplete stage. The station, which was originally intended to serve as the western terminus station of the Empire of Russia, became the main railway station of independent Finland. A total of 15 years had passed since the design contest of the station, and the interior of the station building was still incomplete.^[27]: 16 The patriotic inauguration was opened by the city orchestra playing Finlandia conducted by Robert Kajanus. Guests at the inauguration included architect Eliel Saarinen and regent Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.^[27]: 21

The main platform at the end of the railway tracks was only covered according to the original plans made by the railway administration in 1925.^[26]: 300 In 1938, the administrative building in the western wing was expanded with a wing parallel to the Teatterikuja street according to the plans made by the railway administration.^[27]: 21

1950s

In the Olympic year 1952 a temporary passenger platform was constructed at the cargo station in Töölö. This temporary train stop was named Helsinki-Töölö. During the Olympics, it also served as the departure for express trains to Turku via the Porkkala Naval Base, with the train windows covered when passing the naval base.^[30]: 12 From 1955 to 1957 the exit hall towards the Rautatientori square was divided into two with an intermediary floor and a so-called Olympic Hall was built into the top floor, which had been supposed to be built already in the Olympic year according to the original plans. At the same time, seven new floors were built into the clock tower for the use of the kitchen department, and storage and social spaces were built in the underground floors that had been almost completely unused.^[36]: 8 Ticket sales were opened in the former third class restaurant and waiting hall.^[27]: 21

1960s to 1990s

A photograph by Eric Sundström of arriving baggage at the Helsinki railway station in 1928, which was located at the central hall of the station for a long time. In 1979 arriving baggage moved to the western wing of the station, freeing the central hall for a public thoroughfare.

A station tunnel was built underneath Kaivokatu in 1967, with stairs leading to the tunnel from the central hall of the station. Electric train traffic started at the Helsinki railway station on 26 January 1969.^[36]: 8

From 1978 to 1979, spaces for arriving baggage were built into the underground floor of the western wings, freeing the space in the central hall for a public thoroughfare.^[26]: 300 The last scheduled train with a steam locomotive left Helsinki on 31 December 1970. Regular passenger train traffic with Diesel-powered locomotives ended on 11 August 1996. Today all trains at the Helsinki railway station use electric power.^[36]: 8

The kiosks at the kiosk hall were renovated in the early 1980s according to plans by interior decoration architect Antti Nurmesniemi.

2000s

The perpendicular underpass from the corner of the Kaisaniemi park to the corner of the Eliel Square at the end of the western wing of the station was built from 1999 to 2000. It was designed by architect Jarmo Maunula. The tunnel is 185 metres long and over seven metres wide. It connects to all tracks at the station with stairs and elevators. The walls are panelled, which helps in cleaning away graffiti and other defacements.^{[30]: 12 [8]: 147}

An underground parking garage with 480 places was built to the west of the station, in place of the former cargo railway yard, with the Eliel Square bus terminal on top of it. It was opened for use in October 2000. The new platform tracks 17 to 19 were taken into use in August 2000, when the tracks at the passenger station reached their current form.^[10]: 16

For a long time, the Helsinki railway station was one of the few large railway stations in Europe where passengers boarded the trains under the open sky.^[8]: 148 The main tracks were supposed to be covered right from the start, but the glass roof was only built in 2001. A design contest was held for it, which was won by Esa Piironen's design in 1994.^[37] The glass roof cost about 56 million Finnish markka.^[8]: 147 The roof is about 165 metres long. It is made of painted steel topped with reinforced glass. There are gaps covered with 70 cm grids between the tracks to allow for rainwater to fall down onto the rubble below and to soak into the soil so that the wooden piles originally driven into the former Kluuvi swamp will not decompose. The covered space is partly heated. Its front end is heated by the exhaust pipes of the district heating in front of the main door.^[8]: 148

The western wing was renovated into a commercial business centre in autumn 2003. The corridor surrounded by restaurants and business spaces leads from the main station hall to the end of the western wing, to the western platforms for commuter trains.^[37] At the same time, the retirement foundation of the VR Group commissioned a hotel and an office building to the northern edge of the Eliel Square, reaching over the platforms of the commuter trains. The building was designed by the architectural bureau Artto, Palo, Rossi & Tikka.^[37] It was built in 2003. The facade is made of glass, patinated copper and green granite.^[8]: 149

On 5 June 2005 the station was divided into eleven separate traffic spots, named Helsinki asema, Helsinki Länsisatama, Pasila alapiha, Pasila asema, Pasila tavara, Helsinki Sörnäinen, Käpylä, Oulunkylä, Ilmala asema, Ilmala ratapiha and Helsinki Kivihaka.

The station was named Helsinki Central Station on 7 June 2010.^[38] The previous name was Helsinki Station.

The timetable displays at the station were completely renovated in November 2015. The old LCD displays were replaced with fully modifiable TFT displays.^[39][40]

A new perpendicular underpass tunnel named Kaisantunneli, 220 metres long and four metres wide, leading from the Kaisaniemi park to Töölönlahdenkatu, is under construction and scheduled to be completed in 2023. This pedestrian tunnel will decrease bicycle traffic at the Eliel Square and on the Kaivokatu street and will make access to the station platforms easier.^[41][42]