Unlike other cities which were initially connected to the rest of the world by a single railway line, Rijeka did the same by two railways. Rijeka is connected to the world from two opposite directions at the same time. One railway arrived from the direction of Karlovac and Budapest, whilst the other came from the direction of Ljubljana and Vienna. This took place in 1873 and it was when the city’s first railway station was built.
Traffic was always dense, so it was soon necessary to enlarge the station or to build a newer and larger one. In 1890, Ferenc Pfaff, a Budapest specialist for this kind of infrastructure began with the construction. He did it in the classical style as a complex of three raised pavilions connected by low wings. He drew the building in from the street line, thus skilfully forming a square in front of the station. Moreover, by this the station gained monumentality, although this impression is owed to an optical illusion – as all buildings surrounding it surpass it in height.
