Prokop railway station

Belgrade Centre railway station Железничка станица Београд Центар / Železnička stanica Beograd Centar (Serbian)
Inside the station 2016
Location	Prokupačka St., Belgrade  Serbia
Owned by	Beovoz
Platforms	5 operational (6 planned) + (2 metro platforms planned)
Tracks	8 operational (10 planned) + (2 metro tracks planned)
Construction
Structure type	At-grade
Disabled access	Yes
History
Opened	1974 (partially) 26 January 2016 (last opening)

5 operational (6 planned)

8 operational (10 planned)

The Belgradе Centre railway station (Serbian: Железничка станица Београд Центар / Železnička stanica Beograd Centar), known as Prokop (Serbian Cyrillic: Прокоп) during its construction, is the new railway station at the core of the massive reconstruction of the Belgrade railway junction in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, which officially started in 1974. The station is located in the Belgrade municipality of Savski Venac.

The unsuccessful, decades-long attempted construction of the new central railway station of Belgrade was hampered by a lack of funding to finish adjoining 14 km of tunnels, several railway bridges including the New Railroad Bridge across the Sava river, a new road network connecting to the city and technical installations.

Belgrade Centre station was opened on 26 January 2016, serving two daily trains to Novi Sad, as well as Belgrade commuter railways. The remaining platforms and tracks became operational and all services are to be rerouted to Prokop from the old Belgrade Main railway station.

The ill-fated construction of the new railway station which was supposed to replace the old one in Savamala was to last for decades. Originally, in the late 1960s, it was supposed to be constructed near the present interchange of Autokomanda, but the idea was suddenly dropped, and one of the major architectural authorities at the time, Branko Žeželj, picked Prokop instead, which ultimately left the Autokomanda interchange unfinished—the exit in the Niš direction was only finished in 2007. Council for Urbanism drafted the projected construction of the new railway station in 1971. In 1974 the project was finished and construction began in 1977. Deadline for completion was 1 May 1979, but the rapidly deteriorating economic situation in Yugoslavia at the time slowed construction and the project was halted in 1980. In 1984, the notion of abandoning the project altogether was officially considered for the first time. Construction resumed in 1990 and in the next several years was stopped and restarted several times. In 1996 a new contract was signed with the “Energoprojekt” company. The President of Serbia Slobodan Milošević officially opened the construction of the concrete roof slab which was for the most part finished in 1999 but the building was halted again due to the NATO bombing of Serbia and lack of funds.