After 40 years, Prague has a new railway station: The reconstructed Praha–Bubny enters service
Under reconstruction from 2023, Praha–Bubny station is now welcoming trains and travellers. A spacious and light modern edifice replaces the old station from the 1920s, a key part of the planned improved railway connections to Václav Havel Airport and Kladno.
Holešovice, the busy district of Prague north of the city centre, has gained a shiny new railway station. In the past, it was served by the older and smaller Praha–Bubny station and the younger and bigger Praha–Holešovice. Now the former outshines the latter, as on August 2nd, the first passengers boarded trains to Kralupy nad Vltavou and Ústí nad Labem at the newly opened Praha–Bubny station.
The building is part of a wider project to improve rail travel to the west of Prague, to the airport and the city of Kladno. Its interior is very spacious, measuring 250 x 50 metres, and is made of reinforced concrete. Windows in the roof let in more natural light. According to the director of the railway administration, Jiří Svoboda, Praha–Bubny is the only station in Czechia where the platforms are contained within the building:
“This station is unique in that the train goes into the building and not along the building. That's what makes it so unique, including its roofing.”
The building is the tip of the iceberg of renovation, though. A new stop around the corner for Prague’s exhibition space (Výstaviště) will be operational from Monday 4th, and trains through Praha–Bubny will travel on a modernised section of track, which for almost a kilometre runs on pillars. This raised line has the benefit of allowing easy access between the two halves of Holešovice, passing over Nicholas Winton Street, now much used by pedestrians and cyclists.
Following the cessation of traffic on Praha–Bubny to Praha–Dejvice line in 2023, the renovations have cost over 5.5 billion crowns (around 225 million euros). However, according to the new building’s designer, architect Jakub Cígler, the work is not yet finished:
“In the future, in addition to the two vestibules, there will also be an underpass that will connect Letná with lower Holešovice, because the station is too long, so people don't have to go around the entire station.”
The new station building has the benefit of close proximity to the trams and the metro at Vltavská. This will help commuters from places outside Prague to get into the city more quickly.
The old station building, opened in 1923, will not disappear. As a site of historical significance, where Prague’s Jews were gathered for deportation to the ghettos in Łódź and Terezín, it will be preserved. Work has begun to transform it into the Bubny Centre for Remembrance and Dialogue, which will record the memories of the Holocaust and offer a space for exchange and education.
