amsterdam central station

It is one of the main railway nodes of the Netherlands and is used by approximately 150,000 passengers a day, excluding transferring passengers. It is also the starting point of Amsterdam Metro lines 51, 53, and 54. The station building of Amsterdam Centraal was designed by Pierre Cuypers and A. L. van Gendt, and opened in 1889. It features a roof span of approximately 40 metres fabricated in cast iron by Andrew Handyside of Derby, England. The station is currently under reconstruction due to the construction of the North/South metro line (metro line 52).

Amsterdam Centraal is twinned with Liverpool Street station in London, United Kingdom—the other terminus of the Dutchflyer rail-ferry service.

The building of Amsterdam Centraal is situated on three man-made islands, themselves resting on 8,687 wooden poles which have been driven deep into the muddy and sandy soil. The current location of the station is not the site the city of Amsterdam had originally hoped for; other possibilities included somewhere near the Leidseplein, the Weesperplein, or in the vicinity of the modern-day Sarphatipark. Officials in The Hague, however, felt that the eventual location at the head of the city, along The IJ, was the best location. This was a highly controversial decision, as it effectively cut off Amsterdam from its own waterfront, making it, for all purposes, an inland city. In his History of Amsterdam, Dutch historian Geert Mak writes that:

Almost all of Amsterdam's own experts and others involved in thought this to be a catastrophic plan, 'the most disgusting possible attack on the beauty and glory of the capital'. Nevertheless, the building of the Central Station in front of the open harbour was forced through by the railway department of the Ministry of Transport in The Hague, and the Home Secretary, Thorbecke. Finally, the plan made its way through the Amsterdam municipal council by a narrow majority.

The Tokyo Station building is often said to be fashioned after it, but there is little evidence to support the theory. In fact, Terunobu Fujimori, a scholar of the Western architecture, denied the connection after studying both the building itself and the styles of Tokyo's station architect, Tatsuno Kingo.