Description of the attraction
In September 1839, the Amsterdam-Haarlem railway was inaugurated - the first part of the oldest railway in the Netherlands, connecting Amsterdam and Rotterdam by 1847.
The first, very modest in size and built of wood, Haarlem station was located on Oude Weg near the famous West Gate outside the city. The gauge of the first Dutch railway was 1945 mm. But by 1865 it was narrowed to 1435 mm, in accordance with the standard European gauge adopted by that time (for the first time such a width was proposed by engineer George Stephensen during the construction of the Liverpool-Manchester railway line, and today about 60% of the world's railways track width is 1435 mm).
From the very beginning, the railway in the Netherlands has become very popular, completely displacing inland water transport running along the trekwart canals. It is not surprising that the station on Oude Weg turned out to be too small and could not cope with the large passenger traffic, and therefore, it was decided to build a new station in the northern part of the city, where, in fact, the central station of Haarlem is located today. A new station was built already in 1842, and a railway workshop was opened on Oude Weg in 1844, which eventually became one of the largest in the Netherlands.
The impressive Art Nouveau railway station in Haarlem that you see today was built in 1906-1908 by the Dutch architect Dirk Margadant. Today this station is the only railway station in the Netherlands built in the Art Nouveau style and one of the most interesting structures in Haarlem (the building of the railway station in Haarlem has the status of a national monument).
In 2004, at the Haarlem railway station, some scenes were filmed for Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Twelve", and already in 2005, scenes for Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" were filmed here.
