Qualla: Leiden Centraal railway station

Leiden Centraal railway station: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ninostar, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1910, on a platform just north of the Leiden canal, Sigmund Freud stepped off one train and Gustav Mahler stepped off another. The two men, the composer of the unfinished Tenth Symphony and the inventor of psychoanalysis, walked together for hours through the streets of Leiden, talking about Mahler's marriage. It was the only time they would ever meet. A few years later, the Leiden physicist Paul Ehrenfest started using the same station as a personal collection point, picking up Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and eventually a young J. Robert Oppenheimer from the platforms whenever they came to argue physics with him in town.

Image: Ninostar | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leiden Centraal railway station: Four Stations, One Address

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit M.Minderhoud, CC BY-SA 3.0. What stands at Leiden Centraal today is the fourth building on this site. The first opened on 17 August 1842, a makeshift structure on the east side of the railway bridge built quickly because the line from Haarlem wasn't ready. A proper terminus, a modest single-storey building,...

Image: M.Minderhoud | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leiden Centraal railway station: Schelling's Austere Box

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hay Kranen, CC BY 4.0. The third station, opened in August 1953, solved the level-crossing problem by lifting the tracks onto an elevated viaduct. Its architect, who had designed Amsterdam's Muiderpoort station, gave Leiden a sober post-war building that locals immediately disliked. They felt its plain...

Image: Hay Kranen | CC BY 4.0

Leiden Centraal railway station: The White Lattice

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Erik Zachte, CC BY-SA 3.0. The fourth station opened on 4 May 1996. NS architect Harry Reijnders designed a white lattice structure with a curved, shell-like entrance, fronting a ticketing hall lined with shops and cafes. The structure followed the Rail 21 plan, which allowed high-speed trains to pass stra...

Image: Erik Zachte | CC BY-SA 3.0

Leiden Centraal railway station: A Station for Scholars

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vysotsky, CC BY-SA 4.0. Roughly 35,000 students who study at Leiden University, the country's oldest, do not live in Leiden. They commute. Every morning the platforms fill with bikes, laptops, and coffee cups. The trains scatter them: Intercity services to The Hague, Schiphol, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eind...

Image: Vysotsky | CC BY-SA 4.0

Leiden Centraal railway station: The Famous and the Forgotten

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smiley.toerist, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 1944 RAF raid hints at something the bright new building is careful not to dwell on. Trains carried Dutch Jews from stations like this one to camps from which they did not return. Leiden's prewar Jewish community was decimated. The station after the war was, like so much Dutc...

Image: Smiley.toerist | CC BY-SA 3.0