Amsterdam Centraal - Central Station

by Silva Wischeropp

I discovered this architectural motif during a short city trip to Amsterdam on 13 October 2018.
The photo was taken with the NIKON D90 camera (lens: SIGMA 18.0-50.0 mm f/2.8).

Amsterdam Centraal is the main railway station in the Dutch capital Amsterdam. With 151,112 passengers a day (2022), Amsterdam Centraal is the second busiest railway station in the Netherlands after Utrecht Centraal.
As one of the most important long-distance railway stations in the Netherlands, Amsterdam Central Station is a stop for the Eurostar, ICE International and Thalys high-speed trains. The station connects Amsterdam with major European cities such as Paris, London, Berlin, Cologne, Copenhagen, Munich, Basel and Vienna. It thus connects Amsterdam with European long-distance transport and was and is the starting and finishing point for passenger trains operated by Deutsche Bahn, the French state railway SNCF and the Belgian NMBS/SNCB. Amsterdam Centraal is also a hub for regional and urban transport. Numerous buses, trams, the city metro and the Amsterdam ferries stop there.
On my photo walk through the city of Amsterdam, I was very impressed by this huge hall with its numerous railway tracks. Huge windows flooded with light at an enormous height give the platform hall an incredibly fascinating lighting atmosphere. The countless steel girders give the visitor the feeling of being inside a huge hull.
Although the station was designed by the architect Cuypers, the two large tubular platform halls were designed by the railway engineer L.J. Eijmer. The first hall on the city side was completed in 1889, while the narrower and longer hall on the IJ side (facing the water) was completed in 1922.