The Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti) railway station is the most north-western main railway station of Romania, gateway to both Hungary and Ukraine from the perspective of travelling by train. The current station was built in 1899 and was designed by the architect Ferenc Pfaff in an Austro-Hungarian style. The first station was however built in Satu Mare in 1870.

Ferenc Pfaff has also designed a number of railway stations in Hungary and Transylvania (now part of Romania), and some of these railway stations sometimes share common elements or have a similar flavor. Some of these stations are quite familiar for me: Cluj-Napoca, Arad, Timișoara, Debrecen, Bratislava, Nyíregyháza, Carei, others I didn’t visit yet: Szeged, Jimbolia, Ghimeș-Făget, Zagreb, Győr, Pécs, Miskolc, Kaposvár, Szolnok, Košice and others.

As almost everything in Romania, the decay is there… Keep in mind that this building is 124 years old and probably no maintenance whatsoever… The name is bilingual because Satu Mare is on the border and because there is a significant Hungarian community in the city and the surrounding county. The second part of the Hungarian name of the city, “német“, means German, a hint that the region had (and still has) a historic German minority originating from Bavaria.

The main hall has a very Cluj-like or Arad-like vibe. It is rather simple. To the right is the exit to the trains but the platforms were too crowded to take photos.

Looking back, this is the entrance. A small shop lies to the right, as well as the ticket office.

To the left of the railway station is the bus/coach station or Autogara.