The Eiffel Train Station

Eiffel doesn’t just build towers in Paris. That’s what I learned when my metro pulled into the gorgeous Nyugati station in Budapest. Located on the Pest side on the main drag Terez Korut, the old town station is one of three main hubs spread out across the Hungarian capital, and especially from the outside, it’s clearly one of the most stunning.

Budapest Nyugati Palyaudvar — or Budapest Western Railway Station in Hungarian — was built by the Eiffel company in the late 1800s and officially opened in late '77. There was another railway there previously, but the city wanted to give its transpo hub something with more grandeur. Into addition to running the subway and state trains through the station, Nyugati also hosts several tram and bus lines. It was, in fact, my final entry point into Budapest, having transferred there from the main international station across town.

Eiffel company built the station from August de Serres’ original designs, but this isn’t the only train station that the French company built over the years. They also built the main train station in Santiago, Chile, La Paz Train Station (now just buses) in Bolvia, and the railway bridge over the Coura River in Portugal. Gustave Eiffel actually built all kinds of structures around the world, and, as I just learned, he even helped design the interior structure of the Statue of Liberty.

Personally, I would like to see Frank Gehry or another modern firm get involved in building today’s public transit hubs. The Europeans put an emphasis on designing gorgeous stations so many years ago, and its citizens and millions of tourists continue to use them to this day. Maybe it’s time for America to take a lesson from Nyugati and make public transit our cities' architectural gems.

Photos courtesy of Mark and Janossy via Wikipedia.