Kraków Główny, Kraków

Kraków Główny is Kraków’s largest and most central railway station. Opened in 1847, it grew from the terminus of the Kraków–Upper Silesia Railway into a major national and international hub. Its current passenger hall sits beneath the platforms, while the historic station building survives to their south.

Kraków Główny is Kraków’s main railway station, the city’s largest and most central rail hub. Its railway story begins on the thirteenth of October 1847, when the first train set out for Mysłowice, then a meeting point of the Austrian, German and Russian empires. The station began as the terminus of the Kraków–Upper Silesia Railway.

The original station building was constructed between 1844 and 1847 by Rosenbaum and set parallel to the tracks. Its plan already allowed for railway lines to grow beyond their first limits. Rising traffic brought successive enlargements from 1869 to 1894, followed by another major expansion in the 1930s.

That rebuilding removed the old brick train shed and replaced it with separate roofs over the platforms. Passenger services now occupy the underground hall beneath the platforms, opened in February 2014, directly above the express tram tunnel. The nineteenth-century station building remains south of the platforms and forms part of Kraków’s Technology Trail.

In 2023, 23.4 million passengers used this station, placing it third in Poland that year. It remains a junction for local, long-distance and international trains.