On September 25, 1872, the Northern Railway Station in Bucharest was inaugurated and the first railway line Bucharest-Ploiesti was opened.
The North Railway Station, located in the square with the same name, is currently the largest railway point in Romania and represents the connection to all regions of the country, as well as the largest gateway to Bucharest.
The foundation stone of the Northern Railway Station was laid on September 22/October 4, 1869, in the presence of King Carol I, to be connected to the new railway lines that would connect Bucharest with Galaţi and Craiova.
The station building, along with the platforms and lines, was built according to the plans of the Ministry of Public Works, by the Stroussberg Consortium, and was, at the beginning, called Târgoviştei Station. The following year, the Consortium went bankrupt, and the state bought its shares. Thus, he became the main owner of the station area and the adjacent lines, establishing, at the same time, a Council for its administration.
In November 1870, with the provisional opening of the Bucharest – Ploieşti line, Târgovişte Station was put into operation, and two years later, on September 13/25, 1872, it was officially inaugurated, when the Pitesti railway lines were put into operation – Bucharest — Buzău and Galaţi — Tecuci — Roman, over 600 km long, with 39 stations. Originally intended for the transit of passengers and goods, with seven lines and many workshop buildings, the station has been remodeled several times. Consisting of two parallel bodies connected at the end from the repair shops to another body in a perpendicular orientation, over time new bodies were added, changes to the facades, etc., becoming, over time, a terminus point.
Only in 1888, when the first rehabilitation of the station took place, its name became Gara de Nord. The passenger building had a ground floor and a first floor, and consisted of a central pavilion with two towers that still exist today. The main facade was oriented along Căia Târgovişte. The entrance was made directly from Calea Târgoviştei, and, in front, there was a garden with a central alley called “court of travelers”. In the period 1895-1896, a new wing of the station was built, also equipped with a “royal salon”, restored in its original form from the time of Charles I, and inaugurated on December 1, 2013, by Princess Margareta and Prince Radu.
On April 1/13, 1890, the telephone exchange of the North Station was put into operation, initially having 25 telephone lines, only in Bucharest. In 1907, the North Station was expanded with two more lines, and in 1928, the station had six lines for departures and four lines for arrivals. Plans for the construction of a new station, named “Central Station”, which was to be located somewhere in the area where the Romanian Opera is now located, existed, but the outbreak of the First World War prevented the realization of any project in this sense.
The North Station was modernized and enlarged in the years 1930-1932, when several works were done: the nine platforms were connected, at the end, by a transverse platform (200 m long and 23 m wide) , the fronton from the south was built, and the train receiving/dispatch lines were systematized, increasing their number, from 10 lines to 16 lines (two of them will be abolished later).
The project for the building was carried out by the architect Victor G. Stephănescu and was started in 1932. The new body of the building, as it appears today, has a monumental facade, designed in a modern neoclassical manner, dominated by the portico formed by six large columns.
The public address systems in the stations were also modernized. In 1932, at the North Station, an amplifier (200 w) and six speakers were installed; until 1938, they extended to all the stations in the country, replacing the old platform bell.
The construction of the Station also led to the urban development of the area around it, which began to be populated quickly, the land being occupied mainly by the homes of railway workers.
Starting with 1941, the systematization of the entire area of the North Station began, with the construction of the CFR Palace completed after 1950, which currently houses the Ministry of Transport, started on the site of the old repair workshops. In the 1960s, the North Station Square was closed, building ten blocks on either side of the CFR palace
Also, in Piaţa Garii de Nord there is a monument dedicated to the Ceferist heroes during the First World War, the work of the sculptors Corneliu Medrea and Ion Jalea.
The North Station area, including the building, suffered significant destruction (the southern wing of the station, lines and tunnels) during the intense bombing of Bucharest during the Second World War. The building remained standing, and managed to remain, until now, overcoming a demolition scheduled for 1992, by the former communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, who wanted to build a new train station on the outskirts of the capital.
Between 1945 and 1990, other modernizations were carried out, among which: the electrification of the lines, the lengthening of the platforms, the redevelopment of the waiting rooms, the connection to the heating network, the radiators starting to replace the wood stoves, the construction of pedestrian passages, under/above ground for crossing the lines railways, but also the connection of the station to the metro network through the construction in 1988 of the Gara de Nord metro station. In the same period, railway traffic experienced an enormous increase.
The impressive station building is included in the List of Historical Monuments in Romania with the code B-II-mB-18803. The last rehabilitation works of the North Station building took place between 1997 and 1999, and consisted in the modernization of the waiting rooms, the video display systems, the installation of thermal glass carpentry, the raising of the platforms to the level of the floor of the carriages, the introduction of platform tickets, etc. .Although, after 1990, the number of passengers gradually decreased, the North Railway Station in Bucharest remains an important point on the railway map of Romania, but also of Europe. Currently, over 200 trains arrive and depart from the station, with connections to all major cities of the country, but also to important European cities such as Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Frankfurt, Venice, Berlin or Istanbul.
It should be remembered that the North Station, next to the Sinaia Station, are transit points of the famous luxury train Orient Express, which runs once a year on the route Paris — Istanbul, bringing back to memory the route of the most famous European train that started with more than 125 years ago, from the platform of the Est Station in Paris, towards Istanbul.
Find out presents the main meanings of September 25:
1913 – The popular music singer Maria Tănase was born (d. June 22, 1963).
1599 – The architect Francesco Castelli Borromini, representative of the Italian Baroque (Church of San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane in Rome) was born (d. 1667).
1613 – Claude Perrault, French physician, architect and theoretician, of classical orientation, was born (d. October 9, 1688).
1849 – Johann Strauss – Austrian father, composer, violinist and conductor (b. March 14, 1804) passed away.
1866 – Biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan, founder of the chromosomal theory of heredity – “morganism”, was born; received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1933 (d. December 4, 1945).
1881 – Lu Xun, one of the most important Chinese writers of the 20th century, was born; is considered the initiator of the modern Baihua literary trend (d. October 19, 1936).
1881 – The poet Panait Cerna (Panait Stanciof) was born (d. 1913).
1883 – The Peleş castle was completed and inaugurated, an opportunity used by the authorities to declare Sinaia a city.
1897 – The writer William Faulkner was born, laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, laureate of the Pulitzer Prize: “The Village”, “August Light”, The Noise and the Fury” (d. July 6, 1962).
1901 – Film director and screenwriter Robert Bresson was born (d. December 18, 1999).
1919 – The resignation of the IIC Brătianu government took place, which was succeeded, for a period of three months, by the government led by General A. Văitoianu.
1920 – Russian actor and film director Serghei Bondarciuk was born (d. October 20, 1994).
1943 – Literary critic Octav Botez (b. May 15, 1884) passed away.
1950 – Theater director Aleksandr Tairov (b. 1885) passed away.
1952 – Actor Christopher Reeve, lead actor in the movie “Superman” was born (d. October 10, 2004).
1970 – The German writer Erich Maria Remarque passed away: “Soroc of life and soroc of death”, “Nothing new on the western front” (b. June 22, 1898).
1992 – The Rhine-Main-Danube navigation canal was inaugurated in Nürenberg. By using the Danube-Black Sea Canal, the transport distance between Rotterdam and Constanta was cut in half.
1996 – Nicu Ceauşescu, son of the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu (b. September 1, 1951), passed away.
1997 – At the Mirăuţi Church in Suceava, voivodeship necropolis, seat of the first Metropolitan of Moldova, the tomb of ruler Petru I Muşatinul was discovered.
2003 – Franco Modigliani, laureate of the Nobel Prize for economics in 1985, passed away. In 1939 he emigrated to the USA for fear of the repressions of the fascist regime (b. June 18, 1918).
2005 – American golfer George Archer (b. 1939), American actor and comedian Don Adams (b. 1923) and French jazz pianist Georges Arvanitas (b. 1931) passed away.
2006 – The American writer and poet John M. Ford (b. 1957) passed away.
Source: www.descopera.ro
