After the Opening of the Prokop Station Building – Platforms Below the Level, Public Transport a Serious Problem

The passengers who regularly use rail transport have finally seen the central rail station in the capital city of Serbia, Belgrade Center, better known as Prokop, get its station building instead of a bunch of concrete and reinforcement above the platforms – five and a half years since it took over, still unfinished, the role of the main station in Belgrade. The station building was opened slightly over ten days ago and, since then, the passengers, but also those who follow and welcome them, have been commenting and analyzing the functionality, the equipment and the accessibility of the new station facility, as well as the Prokop station as a whole, including the platforms, both in person and on social networks. Since there have been plenty of comments about the new station facility in under two weeks, eKapija too has visited the central rail station in the capital city in order to see how the station looks and functions now.

The first thing one notices when the station is approached from the direction of the city center is that it can no longer be missed, even by people who are coming there for the first time. For example, those who come by trolley (lines 40 and 41) from the direction of the city can easily notice the station building from the hill where the trolleys make a stop (at the Belgrade Center Rail Station stop). The reason is that now there are easily noticeable huge letters spelling out “Beograd Centar” above the station building entrance. This is especially important in the evening hours, because the lighting in the station complex zone is not the best, so the letters on the station building are even more noticeable.

When the passengers, carrying bags and suitcases, descend downhill to the station building, the first thing they encounter beneath it is the entrance to Platform 6 and the tenth track and the exit from it. The entrance and the exit are canopied and an escalator also leads to them, but these connections with Platform 6 are located outside the station building.

And when one enters the building, the first thing that catches the eye is a huge vault, that is, the steel structure and the central hall which, it is clear at first sight, lacks benches for sitting down and resting – for those who have arrived to the station early or are there to meet somebody. Especially considering that there is enough room for setting up benches or chairs in the hall of the station building, whose central part is nearly empty.

When it comes to what’s most important to the passengers, information, counters, the availability of rail station clerks, several details are noticeable. The info-desk of Srbija Voz is easily noticeable and is located on the right-hand side (looking from the direction of the entrance to the station building), on the corner between the ticket counters and commercial facilities. The desk, which is operated by the cordial staff of this company, is easily spotted thanks to the large “Srbija Voz” company name.

Right alongside it are ticket counters, at which there are no long queues for the time being (eKapija visited the station on a Friday and a Sunday, the days when a higher number of passengers coming to Belgrade and leaving it are expected). Although only four counters are operational for the time being, the lack of long queues, most likely, is down to the fact that tickets are already also being bought through the website, the app and the ticket machines of Srbija Voz (the ticket machines in Prokop are located opposite the counters).

At this station, although one would expect the counters to be given advantage when it comes to visibility, advantage is in fact given to the commercial features (café-restaurants, currency exchanges and other shops), which, unlike the ticket counters, are facing the central part of the station hall.

When it comes to how visible things are, the central part of the hall features a huge information display, providing information about train arrivals and departures. In addition to that, there are smaller displays on walls, but the problem is that, when the size of those displays is put against the size of the space in which they are set up, the space of the station building “swallows” them, that is, they are not big enough.

As for the passenger flows, for weeks before the opening, it had been announced that they would also be organized so that, modeled after airports, the arrivals and the departures are separated, that is, the descending to the platforms and the climbing from the platform to the station building. In the parts intended for descending to the platforms, physical barriers with green and red signals are set up on the right-hand side and the left-hand side (looking from the direction of the entrance to the building and from the central part of the hall), but as it seems, for the time being, the rail clerks are not forcing the passengers to go back and take the other route if they’ve made a mistake. The clerks are very kind and they try to make it as easy as possible for the passengers to navigate the station complex. In addition to that, even with the set up barriers, there are still open passageways beside them, where the passengers and those who follow or meet them can pass into the station hall or exit it and descend to the platforms without any problem.

Shiny building, dusty platforms with leaking ceilings

While everything is shiny in the freshly opened station building, as soon as the passengers start descending into the platform section, the impression starts changing. On the staircase leading toward the platforms and next to the recently installed escalator, layers of dust and traces of finishing works are clearly visible, obviously left over from the final works on the station building and its fitting with the platform part. That’s just the beginning. Because, down below, in certain parts of the platform space, water leaks from the ceilings, soaking the dusty and the currently dirty platforms (which were developed less than eight years ago). To add to it all, all those who hope that they can take an elevator or an escalator from any platform, in fact cannot quite do so. Neither all the elevators nor all the escalators work at the same time, so passengers carrying big bags and suitcases, for now, should count on needing a little extra time to spot a functioning elevator or escalator. If they have extra time, they can reach the station building or the station platform the same way they mostly used to do before the station building opened – directly by the stairs or through the sub-hallways, and then by the stairs again.

Trolley line quick, but not direct

There are three direct lines leading to the Belgrade Center station, but the bus schedule is not good, so the passengers who are heading for Prokop mostly use the trolleys 40 and 41. These rides, for example, from the Main Post Office Building in Takovska Street to the stop above Prokop, outside the peak hour, take seven to eight minutes. When they arrive, by one of these trolleys, to the hill near the rail station, the passengers are supposed to go down the footpath behind the stop (more accurately, the underpass). However, instead of that, a majority of them cross the road and the median strip, and then go across the road again, because that saves them a few minutes, instead of going around. The only problem, and not a small one at that, is that there is no crosswalk in the zone of this stop above Prokop. As the passengers nevertheless still use this shortcut in droves, although they are taking a risk that way, perhaps the competent services, in the foreseeable future, could put a crosswalk there and thereby make this pedestrian shortcut official – if serious public transport lines can’t be brought to the station entrance.

D. Aleksic

Srbijavoz a.d. Beograd

Infrastruktura Železnice Srbije Beograd

Belgrade Center Rail Station

Prokop

counters

station building

station hall

platforms

ticket booths

ticket counters

info desk

station staff

station clerks

railroad

railway

fast train

city railroad

Soko

apps

ticket machines

website