Railway stations are often seen as mere transit points, but some hold secrets, quirks, and fascinating stories that make them destinations in their own right. From eerie, abandoned “ghost stations” hidden beneath bustling cities to heartwarming tales of feline stationmasters, the world’s railways are filled with surprises. Some stations defy logic with their bizarre locations, while others stand as architectural marvels or symbols of historical events.
In this article, we take you on a journey through 50 of the most unusual train stops from around the world—each with a story that sets it apart. Whether you’re a railway enthusiast, a curious traveler, or just someone who loves a good story, these unique stations are bound to capture your imagination. All aboard for an unforgettable ride! 🚆
1 Japan’s Station With No Exit
Japan has a unique railway station with no entrance or exit. Seiryu Miharashi Station serves solely as an observation deck, offering passengers a breathtaking view of the Nishiki River. Since no roads lead to the station, travelers can only access it by train.
2. In Alaska, the Hurricane Turn passenger railway operates as a flag-stop service rather than making scheduled station stops. Passengers in remote areas can simply wave to stop the train, making it one of the last true flag-stop trains in the U.S.
3. The Jungfrau Railway in Switzerland runs through the Jungfrau mountain, with three of its five stations located inside the mountain itself. The final stop, Jungfraujoch, sits at an impressive 3,454 meters (11,332 feet) above sea level and features a scientific observatory nearby.
4. New York City’s Pennsylvania Station holds the title of the busiest railway station in the Western Hemisphere, serving over 600,000 passengers daily.
5. Only Toshiba employees can enter or exit Umi-Shibaura Station in Japan, making it one of the most exclusive railway stations in the world.
6 Caltrain’s College Park station
A high school in San Jose, California, has its own train station. Caltrain’s College Park station, located near Bellarmine Prep School, sees only four train stops per day. While Caltrain has considered closing the station, students and parents argue that it remains busy during those limited stops.
7. Engineers in Tokyo successfully converted an above-ground rail line in 2013 into a subway at one of the city’s busiest train stations without causing any service interruptions. They lowered the tracks into their new subway position in a single night, working within the system’s four-hour off-service window.
8. The world’s first vending machine to sell live crabs debuted in 2010 at a train station in Nanjing, China. It dispenses around 200 live crabs daily, with prices ranging from $2 to $7. A sign next to the machine guarantees that each crab will be alive upon purchase, offering a refund of three live crabs for every dead one dispensed.
9. An abandoned subway station lies beneath City Hall in New York, and although no trains stop there, passengers on the number 6 train can catch a glimpse of it as they pass by.
10. To boost its declining popularity as a travel hub, Japan’s Kishigawa Train Line appointed a cat named Tama as its official station master in 2007. The move attracted a surge in tourism, making the station a popular attraction. In 2010, a second cat joined to “assist” Tama in her duties.
11 Scottish Station Resisted Closure
Duncraig Railway Station in Scotland, which opened in 1897, was scheduled to close in 1964 as part of a rail network restructuring. However, local train drivers refused to acknowledge its closure for 11 years, leading to its reopening in 1976. The station remains operational to this day.
12. In 1944, the American Air Force bombed the Hasselt train station in Flanders. The bombs that missed created a network of craters in the nearby grasslands, which have since become over 110 ponds. These ponds now support a diverse range of aquatic species, including some of high conservation importance.
13. In 1869, a Welsh village adopted the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as a publicity stunt to give its railway station the longest name in Britain. The name translates to “St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near to the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave.”
14. The Nazis disguised the Treblinka II extermination camp as a transit railway hub for deportations further east. They fabricated train schedules, installed a fake station clock with painted-on hands, and even set up a phony ticket window to maintain the illusion.
15. A train station and housing estate in Berlin bear the unusual name “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
16 Cyclone Destroyed Indian Railway Town
In 1964, a super cyclone devastated the town of Dhanushkodi in South India, turning it into a ghost town. The storm overturned a train as it arrived at the railway station, killing over 200 passengers. Despite the chaos, four radio operators continued broadcasting warnings and survived by clinging to a bridge for 12 hours.
17. Although located in Basel, Switzerland, the Basel Badischer Train Station operates as an enclave of Germany’s European Customs Union. This unique arrangement exists due to an 1852 treaty between Switzerland and Baden (Germany).
18. During the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, stationmaster Ghulam Dastagir at the Bhopal Railway Station in India refused to leave his post and prevented trains from stopping at the station, saving thousands of lives. While his actions were heroic, prolonged exposure to the toxic gas left him battling severe health issues for the next two decades.
19. Beneath New York City, on the lower concourse of Grand Central Terminal, a windowless 440-seat oyster and seafood bar has been serving customers since the terminal’s opening in 1913. Apart from brief closures due to a fire in 1997 and COVID-19, it has operated continuously.
20. The London Underground, once marketed as a cool refuge from hot weather, has been gradually heating up. This is due to dissipated heat from train braking, which the surrounding clay—a natural insulator—traps and retains over time.
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21 North America’s Oldest Subway
The Tremont Street Subway in Boston is the oldest underground rail system in North America and the third oldest in the world, following London and Budapest.
22. The film Trainspotting got its name from Leith Central Railway Station in Scotland, which, in the 1980s, became a gathering place for drug addicts who were mockingly said to be “train-spotting.”
23. From 1927 to 2003, the UK Royal Mail operated an underground railway network in London, using driverless trains to transport mail between sorting offices.
24. Japan’s deepest train station sits 70 meters (230 feet) underground. With no escalators, passengers must descend 486 steps, taking about 10 minutes to reach the platform from the ticket gate.
25. The Montparnasse derailment in Paris remains one of the most infamous train accidents in history. A speeding train entered the station too fast, crashed through a wall, and plummeted 33 feet before landing on its nose, tragically killing a woman standing below. A guard, distracted by paperwork, failed to apply the emergency handbrake and was fined 25 francs for his negligence.
love your article
RE: Fact #12 (WWII Bombing Created 110 Ponds) – Man: Screw this place.
Nature: Yeah, man, it’s all good. I can handle it.
RE: Fact #39 (Russian Stray Dogs Use Subway) – I was in Moscow, and guess what? This dog was right next to me on the subway! He just chilled there, then when they announced his stop, he got up, waited for the doors, and *knew* where to go. Seriously, that dog knew the Moscow metro better than I did!
RE: Fact #11 (Scottish Station Resisted Closure) – The reason?
One of the drivers is quoted as saying:
“We thought that if the English wanted to close a railway station they should pick on Euston or King’s Cross”
RE: Fact #21 (North America’s Oldest Subway) – Its funny when you walk the route from park street to downtown crossing, because its so brief makes you wonder why they went through the trouble. Also interesting factoid pretty sure New York was building stuff around the same time and wanted to use compressed air
RE: Fact #33 (Deepest London Station Held Archives) – The world’s deepest subway station? That’s in Ukraine, a whopping 105.5 meters down! Lots of the really deep ones are in old Soviet Union countries – they were built to be bomb shelters, too. Out west, stations that deep are usually because of the land itself. By the way, there’s a new one coming in Stockholm, on the blue line extension, that’ll be 95 meters underground.
RE: Fact #23 (UK’s Underground Mail Railway) – London’s got a crazy number of tunnels under it, I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen apart yet!
RE: Fact #36 (USSR Dominated Global Rail Freight) – The USSR? It was huge.
RE: Fact #26 (Secretly Built Romanian Metro Station) – I bet not many Romanian workers got fat in the 80s.
RE: Fact #19 (Grand Central’s Hidden Oyster Bar) – Crazy how things I saw every day for eight years on my NYC commute is now a fact on factrepublic!
It’s a neat spot, good food, but a bit pricey.
RE: Fact #14 (Treblinka’s Fake Railway Station) – This kind of thing actually worked. The last Jewish group from Theresienstadt, when they got to Auschwitz, were asked to join the rebellion. They said no, because they couldn’t believe the Germans would gas them. They just didn’t buy what the Polish and Jewish spies were saying about being killed.
RE: Fact #44 (Australia’s Roadless Train Station) – It’s a tiny platform—just one train car long, actually. Tell the conductor you want to get off at that stop and go to the end car, otherwise, the train will zoom right past. Seriously, though, most of the scenery on that Sydney-Newcastle train is stunning.
RE: Fact #36 (USSR Dominated Global Rail Freight) – Wait, so the USSR only had 10% of the world’s railways, but somehow moved half of all the rail freight? That’s crazy.
RE: Fact #30 (Millipedes Caused Train Crash) – Those millipedes sure paid the price.
RE: Fact #7 (Tokyo Rail Line Lowered Overnight) – Wow, that was super efficient, but they dropped the track a couple of feet. I was a bit disappointed with the change.
RE: Fact #12 (WWII Bombing Created 110 Ponds) – Check out this aerial shot of the ponds. A total of 156 bombs slammed into the train yard. Hasselt got hit fifteen times between April 8th and May 28th. Five of those attacks were focused on the train yard and nearby areas. It was awful for the people living there – 107 were killed and 144 hurt. The damage was huge too: 454 houses were completely destroyed or badly damaged, and lots more were slightly damaged. The ponds are now home to lots of rare insects and amphibians, including some kinds of frogs, newts, and dragonflies that are scarce in Belgium.
RE: Fact #39 (Russian Stray Dogs Use Subway) – Lots of city dogs have moved to the suburbs and just come downtown for important stuff.
RE: Fact #42 (Stalingrad Station Changed Hands 14 Times) – Picture this: a totally Monty Python-esque conductor at the train station. He thinks the Germans are winning, so he grabs a German hat, practices his accent (“Guten Tag, bist du haben ticketten?”), and then – BAM! – the Soviets attack. He dives into a bathroom, swaps the German hat for a Soviet one, and busts out his Russian accent (“Ah, comrade, do you have da ticketski?”). After all that craziness, he finally escapes, ditches both hats and outfits, and it turns out he’s French the whole time! He just walks off whistling the Marseillaise.
RE: Fact #6 (Caltrain’s College Park station) – College Park is a tiny Caltrain stop—that commuter train between San Francisco and San Jose, and even out to Gilroy. Back in 2011, Sean Monroe, a senior and one of seven Bellarmine guys who all got on at Gilroy, went to a Caltrain board meeting to protest planned cuts. He said on the way, “If this train wasn’t here, I’d probably go to Gilroy High. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I like my school better.”
Only four of the 86 daily trains stop at College Park, but people argued that it’s super busy when a train *does* stop. One parent said it’s always crazy crowded when the train pulls in.
The students got their way, and College Park still has four trains a day. I’ve used it myself—it’s about as basic as a train station can get; you even have to walk across the tracks to get to the northbound platform.
RE: Fact #18 (Stationmaster Saved Lives in Bhopal) – The same company behind the Bhopal disaster, Union Carbide, had another big mess in West Virginia the following year. They’ve never really owned up to it or compensated the people hurt.
RE: Fact #18 (Stationmaster Saved Lives in Bhopal) – I really hope they do a Chernobyl-style show about the Bhopal disaster. Most people outside India haven’t heard of it.
RE: Fact #10 (Japan’s Feline Station Master) – Nitama, or “Second Tama,” now handles everything Tama did after she passed away. She’s been promoted to big boss, the Eternal Stationmaster! Yontama (“Fourth Tama”) is her right hand and next in line. They kept Sun-tama-tama (“Third Tama”) in Okayama for training, and decided they liked her too much to bring her back.