New Chances for Train Stations

What to do with old train stations? Cancel service and demolish them? Keep them, complete with bored ticket sellers, though only a handful of passengers pass through? The ideal lies in between, and Europeans have sought the solution for years. Czechs seek this, too, but haven't made much progress.

Some might say Petr Chaloupka suffers from train obsession. His girlfriend would say so.

"Whenever we take a train, he forgets everything and only looks for signposts and track types,"

Eva Zemanová

said. Chaloupka, a 35-year-old operator at a gas plant, has admired trains since childhood. Now he spends holidays at a depot.

The couple's accommodations lie in the dispatch building at the station in Střížovice, a half hour by rail from Jindřichův Hradec. It looks like a model train set: Trees grow so healthy it appears that a hobbyist exaggerated the green paint. A forest surrounds the station, and a polished train blows its horn several times daily. The 19th-century building fits the tradition of others built during the Austrian monarchy. The station once represented the gateway to the world. A century ago, terminals made for central spots in villages and towns.

Then, stations functioned as airports do today. Passengers arrived early, checked in luggage, showed tickets and awaited the bell in second- or third-class lounges.

Bigger terminals had…