How to discover the charm and essence of a train station? How to tell what people feel when they climb out of a train in a strange station for the first time or return back home from a long journey, or simply run their daily errands? We believe that personal memories, awakened by all of our senses, are the best way to reveal the magic of train stations.

The exposition “Life of a Train Station” is dedicated to a train station as the centre of a railway, a place of settlement and social life of man in the 20th century. This is not a classic story about the functions and historical development of a train station. It is a call to experience a train station through memories and to tell them to our children and grandchildren.

Train station’s rhythm of life, that was so typical in the old days, gradually vanishes with the development of cutting-edge technologies, the triumph of road transport and the ever-growing daily rush of modern people. The small train station buildings get turned into museums, churches, shops and residential houses. Others stare at the world through their dark window panes waiting for their new owners to come. We tend to become nostalgic when we think back on what those lonely stations once used to be, and at the same time, we feel joy in seeing them. Just like a man standing on a platform of a station seeing an approaching train.

Authors of the idea and the artwork: Einārs Timma