By the beginning of the 20th century, Novi Sad became an important railway junction in southern Hungary. The city had five railway stations, two loading/unloading terminals, as well as the wagon and locomotive maintenance workshops. The stations were strategically located and connected to one another by railway. However, following a more intense development of the city during the period between the two World Wars, the railroads became an obstacle to urban development, especially as regards the expansion of the city to the Danube river shore.
The Second World War represented a turning point in the development of Novi Sad’s rail network since after the destruction of both bridges across the Danube the city was temporarily cut off from the southern parts of the country. After the end of the war, at the beginning of 1946, a temporary road railway bridge was built in place of the Prince Tomislav Bridge. Steam locomotives rumbled through the baroque downtown Petrovaradin till 1962 when the new railway bridge was completed, followed by the construction of the railway station building. (Pruge i vozovi u Vojvodini, 2002)
Reconstruction of the collapsed railway bridge was not done after the war, because there were already ideas about expanding and relocating the railway network, so as not to hinder the urban development of the city. More precisely, the tunnel under the fortress was one track wide, making the process of drilling another one quite complicated. (Holnapy, 1994)