Katowice historic train station

Katowice historic train station was the main railway station of Katowice, in the Silesia region of what is now Poland. Built in 1859 and reconstructed and expanded several times, it was judged obsolete after World War II, and in 1972 decommissioned and replaced by the newly built Katowice railway station. Three years later it was declared a National Monument. It is partially ruined and owned by a private developer who plans to renovate the station buildings and develop the complex into a multifunctional center.

The station mixes neoclassical and modernist historical architecture styles and has been described as "one of the most interesting European railway stations from the architectural perspective".

The Upper Silesian Railway (Oberschlesische Eisenbahn, OSE) line, operated by the Upper Silesian Railway Company, was the first railway line in today's Poland. In 1842 it extended from Wrocław via Oława to Brzeg. In the years thereafter it was steadily expanded until it reached Katowice and Mysłowice in 1846. Shortly afterward, in 1848, OSE was connected to the Austrian Kraków and Upper Silesian Railway and the international Warsaw–Vienna railway.

The train station at Katowice opened on 7 October 1846. At its inception the station was intended primarily as a maintenance and resupply stop for passing trains; Katowice was simply a convenient location en route to Mysłowice and the other railway lines to connect to. But Katowice soon grew in importance due to the train station's existence. With Baildon Steelworks and several coal mines expanding and taking advantage of the train station, Katowice quickly became one of the most important cities of Upper Silesia, receiving city rights in 1865. The city kept growing, becoming the capital of the Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic in the aftermath of World War I. The representative neoclassical station, completed in 1859, grew together with the city, quickly expanding beyond its original smaller purpose, and consequently, size.

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