1917: The Inauguration of a Major Railway Station in Bogotá

July 20, 1917

A major railway station was officially opened in Bogotá, the capital of the Republic of Colombia and one of South America’s largest cities. This neoclassical building, which replaced a station in existence since the 1880s, has been widely called the Bogotá La Sabana railway station and is also known in Spanish as Estación de la Sabana. The English translation for the “sabana” part of this station’s name is “savanna” (a diverse woodland-grassland ecosystem). Bogotá is in the southwestern area of what is called the Bogotá savanna (Sabana de Bogotá), a high-altitude plateau on the Eastern Ranges of the Andes.

The ultimate design for the Bogotá La Sabana railway station has been credited to civil engineer William Lidstone (1843-1927). The sculptor responsible for this building’s ornamentation was Colombo Ramelli Adreani (1884-1946).

This station served as the longtime central station for both the Bogotá Savannah Railway and the National Railways of Colombia, each of which was liquidated in 1991. Over the decades, the Bogotá La Sabana railway station has become renowned for its historical and cultural significance. In 1984, it was formally declared a national monument.

Photo Credit: By Felipe Restrepo Acosta [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Additional information on transportation in Colombia is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Colombia