Haapsalu's railway station is an architectural statement built in 1905 in the Historicist style, designed to receive the Russian imperial family and their entourage in appropriate grandeur. The elegant wooden building with its distinctive tower and the famous covered platform are the most photographed structures in town after the castle.
No trains have used the station since the Soviet era, when the tracks were eventually pulled up. The building now houses the Estonian Railway and Communications Museum, which traces 150 years of Estonian rail history with exhibits on locomotives, signals, and the role of the railways in the country's development. The imperial waiting room has been restored with period furnishings.