Features
The station is mostly clad in Finnish granite, and its distinguishing features are its clock tower and the two pairs of statues holding the spherical lamps, lit at night-time, on either side of the main entrance. Animated characters based on the statues have recently been featured in some major advertising campaigns by Finland's government-owned railway operator VR, to the extent of releasing rap singles allegedly sung by Kivimiehet ("The stone men").
There are 19 platforms at the station. Numbers 1–3 are on the east side and serve local trains on the Tikkurila route, their tracks stop short of the main station roof. Numbers 4–11 in the centre of the station are the main platforms for longer-distance trains which stretch down to terminate in front of the main station building, commonly 5–10 serve trains running via Tikkurila to Tampere, St Petersburg and other points north and east, while 11–12 serve express trains via the Espoo line to Turku. Numbers 12–19 are on the west side and serve local trains on the Espoo and Vantaankoski routes, again their tracks stop short of the main station roof. The tracks funnel into separate express and local tracks for both the Espoo and the Tikkurila routes with the express tracks in the middle and the local tracks on the outside, aligning with their respective platforms. This gives 8 principal tracks but there is a 9th, additional express track for the Tikkurila route out through Pasila in the Helsinki suburbs, the first station at which all trains stop, 5 minutes out of Helsinki main station.
Outside the station the loading area for the car-carrying trains is on the west side. Also on the west side, a branch freight route used to turn to the west and passed through the inner west side of Helsinki to the West Harbour. This branch was lifted in 2009 when freight operations were moved to the new Vuosaari Harbour from old harbours. Until 2006 the area between Parliament House, Helsinki and the passenger station contained the VR warehouses, a large rail-freight complex.
The main maintenance area for the Finnish Railways is located at Pasila, the first station out of Helsinki Central. The old steam locomotive roundhouse facility to the south of Pasila station still stands and is used for sundry functions. The main area is now to the north of Pasila station, in the fork between the Espoo and the Tikkurila lines.
Steam locomotives were replaced by diesel in the 1950s on Finnish railways, and in turn the first electric trains were introduced in 1969–70 on the Helsinki local lines; the trains introduced at that time are still in substantial use. Main line trains were then gradually changed over as the electric network was extended over the bulk of the Finnish rail system, including all trains which serve Helsinki.
Helsinki station serves as a central hub for Finnish transport. There is a bus station on both sides of the main station building. The Helsinki Metro Rautatientori station is located under the main station building, linked through the Asematunneli pedestrian underpass and underground shopping centre complex, which has entrances in the main hall of the station and at various points in the surrounding city centre streets. The majority of Helsinki's tram routes pass in front of or to the west of the station.
There are two regular bus connections between Helsinki Central railway station and Helsinki-Vantaa airport. One of them is a municipal connection operated by HSL. As an exception for HSL bus lines, the line can only be used for inter-city transport – once a passenger boards the bus they may only disembark after crossing the border to Vantaa. The other bus connection is a private express bus operated by Finnair. It does not accept HSL tickets.
Read more about this topic: Helsinki Central Railway Station
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
““It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the windowpane.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)