The first railway line in Hungary (Budapest-Vác) was opened in 1846, followed by the construction of the Budapest-Szolnok railway line in 1847. According to the original plans, the latter railway line would have led to Arad (now in Romania) via Szarvas, Mezőberény, Békés and Gyula, but the people of Békéscsaba recognised the potential of the railway at an early stage and asked for the line to be rerouted. To this end, they made substantial financial and in-kind contributions: land expropriation, earthworks, construction of bridges, and the promise of 500,000 bricks for the construction of the station building, which contributed to the change of the planned route.
In November 1856, the Tiszavidéki Railways (TVV) acquired the exclusive right to build the Arad-Szajol line through Békéscsaba. The construction of the 143 km long section proceeded at a rapid pace and the railway line as well as the railway station in Békéscsaba were inaugurated on 25 October 1858. The station building in Békéscsaba was built according to the type plan of the Tiszavidéki Railways for Class III station buildings and looked like the beautifully restored Karcag railway station of today.
By 1871 Csaba had become a real railway junction, by which time the Alföld-Fiumei Vasút (AFV) was entirely completed. By the mid-1880s, both the TVV and the AFV had been taken over by the state, with the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV) operating the lines.
By the early 20th century, the station building had become very congested, and expansion was inevitable. Although the idea of building a new station building was considered, in 1909 only the extension of the side wings of the station building was completed.
In the mid-1920s, the people of Békéscsaba dreamt of a grandiose, nearly 200-metre-wide, modern station building to replace the existing one, but it never materialised.
Instead, plans for a more modest, two-tower neo-Baroque station building were approved in 1928, designed by MÁV engineer Béla Goszleth. The tender for the construction was won by the company of János Lipták, a building contractor from Békéscsaba, in the spring of 1931, and demolition work began immediately. However, construction was delayed, and the building was inaugurated on 21 October 1933 without any ceremony.
During the Second World War, the bombing on the 21st September 1944 damaged several railway buildings, including the old and the new station buildings, but fortunately the central waiting hall and the towers of the latter remained intact.
In the decades following the Second World War, both station buildings deteriorated, and only partial and stylistically inappropriate renovations were carried out.
Between 2013 and 2016, MÁV renovated both station buildings, taking the monument protection requirements into account to the maximum extent, and modernised them to meet 21st century needs, for example, the platforms are now accessible from the passenger hall of the Goszleth station building via underpass and lift. Both buildings are beautiful examples of the preservation of Hungary’s railway heritage.
