Smíchov's Station Building Will Not Be Touched Until 2029, a Year After the Tracks Are Done

The reconstruction and conversion of the Smíchov station building could begin in 2029 and last two years. Pavel Paidar, director of the construction preparation department at Správa železnic, said so at the Pražské dopravní fórum conference on 15 September, in remarks reported by ČTK.

That date is the news, and it is worth setting against the one next to it. The rebuilding of the railway station itself — the tracks and platforms — started in 2024 and is meant to be finished in 2028. So the building at the front of it is scheduled to go under scaffolding the year after the operation behind it comes back to normal.

What the building project covers

Správa železnic plans to repair the main station building and to build a new southern wing. Designers from Sudop, selected in a tender, are now working on the design documentation, according to Paidar. The new wing is to contain shops, restaurants, public lavatories, luggage lockers and other facilities, according to information published earlier.

The station behind it

The reconstruction of the station started in 2024 and is budgeted at 5.1 billion crowns, most of it paid from European funds. The works cover a complete rebuild of the track layout, the renovation of the three existing platforms and the construction of one new one. Paidar said that construction will shortly begin on a footbridge to replace the one removed earlier, restoring the pedestrian connection across the station.

On top of that, and in coordination with Správa železnic, the city is preparing more structures here. A deck is to be built over the platforms to carry the bus terminal that will move from Na Knížecí, and a park-and-ride car park is planned.

Put together, Smíchov is being rebuilt in at least four overlapping projects with different clients and different funding: tracks and platforms to 2028, a footbridge starting shortly, a bus terminal and P+R from the city, and the station building from 2029 to about 2031. The 2029 date is therefore not a delay so much as a queue position.

And the main station, after 2032

Paidar also gave the Prague Transport Forum a marker on the other big station project. Správa železnic has recently started reconstructing the ceiling slab of the new departure hall at Praha hlavní nádraží, work that runs until 2028. Separately, the organisation is planning a large rebuild of the station with the city, for which it held an architectural competition in 2023.

The project that came out of that competition — demolishing a large part of the new departure hall and building a large timber roof structure over the station — drew extensive criticism. What the final transformation will look like is not yet clear. According to Paidar, the rebuild is not expected before 2032.

A new high-capacity crossing over Wilsonova should also be built in due course.

— Pavel Paidar, director of construction preparation, Správa železnic

That is the sentence to hold onto from the main station part. Read against the rest of his account — and this is our reading, not his — the pedestrian crossing of Wilsonova is now attached to a project that has no agreed shape and no date before 2032, while the two things Správa železnic can do on its own, the ceiling slab and the Smíchov building, have both got dates.