26 Secretly Built Romanian Metro Station
In 1985, First Lady Elena Ceaușescu ordered the removal of the Piața Romană metro station in Romania, believing that workers and students needed more exercise. However, engineers secretly built the station anyway, recognizing its importance to the metro system.
27. The Vatican has the world’s shortest railway, consisting of just two 300-meter tracks and a single station, Città del Vaticano. Although primarily used for importing goods, it remains a symbolic relic, as no regular passenger trains operate there.
28. New York City has entire fake buildings designed to function as ventilation shafts for the underground subway system.
29. Magnus Volk, a British railway pioneer, designed the “Daddy Long Legs” in 1897, a unique electric tram designed to run on submerged tracks in the ocean. Mounted on four 23-foot-tall legs, it moved at a slow walking pace, allowing passengers to travel above the waves.
30. In 2013, a train crash in Australia occurred due to an unexpected culprit—millipedes. Swarms of them covered the tracks, causing a train pulling into a station to lose traction as it crushed the insects, ultimately resulting in a collision with another train.
31 Why Many Cities Have Union Station
In the United States, a “Union Station” refers to a railway station where two or more separate railway companies share tracks and facilities. This explains why many major cities have a train terminal called Union Station.
32. Trams in Hiroshima resumed service just three days after the atomic bomb was dropped.
33. The deepest London Underground station, located 221 feet underground, was never completed. Instead, it was repurposed to store secret archives during World War II.
34. During World War II, Amsterdam’s tram line number 8 was used to deport Jews. As a result, the line was discontinued in 1942, and the number 8 has never been reassigned to a tram route since.
35. A baboon named Jack officially worked as a signalman for South African Railways from 1881 to 1890. He received a daily wage of twenty cents and half a bottle of beer each week. Remarkably, Jack never made a single mistake throughout his railway career.
36 USSR Dominated Global Rail Freight
By 1960, rail transport in the USSR had become so dominant that it handled nearly half of the world’s railway freight (measured in tonne-kilometers), despite its rail system comprising only 10% of the world’s railway length.
37. As the city of Wuppertal, Germany, expanded, it faced a challenge—there was no space to build a conventional railway. Instead of a standard monorail, the city constructed an innovative “Floating Monorail” system above the river. Commencing operation in 1901, it still remains in popular use a century later.
38. In the 1950s, England built an underground city to shelter 4,000 key government employees in the event of a nuclear strike. The facility included 60 miles of roadways, an underground lake for fresh water, and a railway for transporting the royal family. The project remained secret until it was revealed to the public in 2004.
39. In post-Soviet Russia, feral dogs have adapted to urban life by learning to commute on the subway. They navigate the system based on station announcements, allowing them to expand their food scavenging territory.
40. In 1972, artist Dieter Meier installed a commemorative plaque at the Kassel railway station in Germany, declaring, “On 23 March 1994, from 3 to 4 pm, Dieter Meier will stand on this plaque.” True to his word, he fulfilled the promise 22 years later.
41 London Necropolis Railway for the Dead
The London Necropolis Railway opened in 1854 to transport corpses and mourners to a cemetery 37 km outside the city. The cemetery, the largest in the world at the time, even had two stations—one for Anglicans and another for non-Anglicans.
42. During the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, a local railway station changed hands between Soviet and German forces 14 times in just six hours.
43. The gyromonorail was an experimental railway system that ran on a single track, balancing upright using a gyroscope. Despite its ability to bank on turns, the concept was never implemented beyond the prototype stage due to the high cost of equipping each train car with a gyroscope.
44. Wondabyne railway station in Australia is the only one in the country with no road access. It is a request stop primarily used by hikers and local residents who access their homes by boat.
45. Before commercial air travel, the term “air line” referred to railways that followed relatively straight, direct routes, advertised as being faster than other rail lines.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Berlin’s Ghost Stations in Cold War
During the division of Berlin, West Berlin subway lines still passed through East Berlin but did not stop there, leaving behind heavily guarded “ghost stations.” Over the years, some East Berlin citizens managed to escape by secretly boarding trains bound for the West.
47. Canfranc Railway Station, completed in 1928 to link France with Spain, was the second-largest station in Europe at 240 meters in length. During World War II, it became a hub for spy operations, refugee smuggling (including artists like Chagall and Ernst), and the trafficking of over 100 tons of gold.
48. A McDonald’s restaurant inside one of Budapest’s main railway stations—housed in a grand 19th-century building—was once named Europe’s most beautiful McDonald’s.
49. In 1963, after experiencing what he described as cosmogonic visions, Salvador Dalí declared the railway station in Perpignan to be the center of the universe.
50. Lympstone Commando railway station, located on the Avocet Line in Devon, England, only stops for visitors to the Royal Marine Commando Training Centre—and only if they request the train driver to stop.
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”
Yeah, I think they should shut down Euston. —A regular Euston Station user
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!
If I remember correctly, the rock under London, mostly north of the Thames, is really great for digging tunnels, explaining why London’s got such a massive underground network.
It’s just north of the river. That’s why there aren’t many underground tubes south of the Thames.
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.
I drove past the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa nearly every day for ages. Then it hit me – most people would think that’s weird.
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.
Seems like they’re comparing weight to how far things had to go, which is a bit sneaky since the USSR was gigantic.
RE: Fact #30 (Millipedes Caused Train Crash) – Those millipedes sure paid the price.
Crazy, right? In Australia, nothing eats them naturally. Apparently, trains are their only enemy.
It’s like a bunch of millipedes teaming up to take down the biggest, baddest millipede around. Thousands of them gave it their all to topple that giant steel thing.
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.
Don’t trust those platform measurements—they’ve been fiddled with.
So, the video shows the tracks joining right where the old and new subway lines meet. Further out from the station, there are actually two levels of tracks—the new ones are below the old ones. They finished building that part before filming, since it didn’t disrupt train service. The important bit is where the tracks split, and how they’ve lowered the old track to smoothly connect to the new subway line.
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.
Things in Argentina aren’t going as planned. We need to mess with their economy again, shift the anger from the rich to the middle class, spark a coup, and put a friendly government in charge.
Those are the squirrels. Leave them alone.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if dogs kept getting smarter and smarter? Hanging around us tech-heads for ages, they’ve gotta be picking stuff up, right?
We’d only get that if we bred them that way, or if street dogs needed to be smarter to make it.
It’s a shame, but not all city dogs could move to the suburbs. Lots of bankers made it tough for darker-furred dogs to get mortgages. Plus, some dog homeowners priced their houses way too high, only dropping the price for certain dogs. Think about it – being a good boy, but not getting what you deserve because of your fur color!
That made things harder for dark-furred dogs, their pups, and even their grandkids. Suburban life and a good life were pretty much tied together, so keeping out darker dogs meant limiting their opportunities.
But every dog deserves a chance. They’re all good boys – they rarely have accidents inside and always chase away that grumpy mailman. That’s what matters, not their fur color.
It’s weird how shelters always seem to have darker dogs waiting longer to get homes than lighter ones. I read that somewhere, I can’t believe it. I get that people prefer puppies and cute stuff, but why the color thing?
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.
Union Carbide’s new name is Eveready.
It’s a Dow Chemical company, based in Houston.
Eveready batteries?
They always duck responsibility.
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.
Turns out, Nitama got the job because she was the most willing to wear the hat.
Things are heating up with Okayama – a real cat fight’s started!
I’ve started putting together the Cat Shoguns.
RE: Fact #32 (Hiroshima’s Trams Resumed in 3 Days) – Except for the ones that got instantly burned up.
RE: Fact #2 (Alaska’s Last Flag-Stop Train) – I think there was a show, maybe called Alaskan Train or something like that, and they showed this stop. It was crazy – no platform, people just hopped on!
I think it was called Railway Alaska, and it was on the Discovery Channel. If you’re into that kind of thing, it’s worth a watch; it showed the train and the people who live way up north pretty well.
RE: Fact #41 (London Necropolis Railway for the Dead) – Thanks for sharing!
I grew up in London, born in ’53. Belsize Park tube station was right nearby; I’d go with my mum to work as far as the second lamppost – she’d walk, I’d run!
I loved trains when I was a kid, even spent a while being a proper trainspotter – Yep, I had the anorak and all!
I can still picture those train compartments, you know, the ones with the string bags for luggage, and three little photos underneath, all smelling really… distinctive.
RE: Fact #20 (London Underground Getting Hotter) – I was on the Central Line one summer, and this guy with a Jamaican accent announced, “Hello and welcome to the sauna!” He wasn’t kidding.
RE: Fact #30 (Millipedes Caused Train Crash) – I figured they were pretty harmless. Turns out, Aussie wildlife might be teaching the newcomers to be total killers.
Turns out, there’s always some new creepy-crawly to be scared of in Australia. Take train millipedes, for example – yikes!
RE: Fact #5 (Japan’s Exclusive Toshiba Station) – I worked at the UK Parliament, and there was a secret exit at Westminster tube – just for staff.
Only Westminster Tubers get to eat at the Parliament Chippy—hot oil burns, and we don’t want to hurt tourists.
RE: Fact #32 (Hiroshima’s Trams Resumed in 3 Days) – Two of them are still chugging along just fine. Hiroshima’s basically a living museum for trams – other Japanese cities switched to subways, so they shipped their old trams to Hiroshima. That’s why you see so many different kinds there. Hiroshima couldn’t build a subway because of the ground – it’s too wet and soft.
RE: Fact #7 (Tokyo Rail Line Lowered Overnight) – In Montreal, it would’ve taken ages—months instead of just four hours. We’d have blown way past budget, more than doubling the cost, and things would’ve needed a major overhaul within six months. It seems this is a problem almost everywhere in the Americas and beyond, actually.
Honestly, there was a lot of construction before and after that four-hour window. They just timed it so trains could still run on schedule. Lowering the tracks had to be done quickly, since it’s impossible with trains running.
No worries, I get it. I’m talking about that four-hour window. The whole thing would’ve taken ten years, half of it arguing about whether it was even needed and planning pointless stuff in those fancy committees. And then, five or six years down the line, bam! Scandal! Turns out some committee member rigged the whole thing to get their pal the construction job and a big kickback. 🙂
RE: Fact #37 (Germany’s Floating River Monorail) – I checked out the stations, and they basically had a tiny sign saying, “Don’t go here, dummy, this is high up!” Regular subways let you wander onto the tracks and, well, jump into the river or street. But here? Automatic doors stop anyone from leaping to their doom. In Wuppertal? Just a sign. I dig that.
RE: Fact #28 (NYC’s Fake Subway Ventilation Buildings) – Ever notice how your power company might have something similar going on nearby? Picture it: a cute suburban house, perfect lawn, newspaper on the porch…but inside? Just a giant gravel pit and a bunch of power stuff. I bet someone’s tried to break in before and was totally bewildered. Seriously, those places are super dangerous; if the power kicks on while you’re messing around, you’ll be toast.
It’s pretty neat how this hidden infrastructure blends in so well, huh? Makes you wonder what other secret stuff is hidden in plain sight.
Yeah, there’s one pretty close to my parents’ place – they built it a few years ago. It’s so perfect, it’s kinda creepy, though. Like, super-manicured lawn, amazing flowers, the whole nine yards. Most people probably wouldn’t notice, but I always think, “There’s that weird fake house,” every time I drive by.
They keep it super clean, otherwise people will gripe and get it taken down—says it hurts their property value or whatever.
RE: Fact #29 (1897 Ocean Tram on Stilts) – An electric tram running on underwater tracks? Amazing!
RE: Fact #18 (Stationmaster Saved Lives in Bhopal) – A hero is someone ordinary who finds the strength to keep going, even when things are really tough.
Thirty-six years ago, on December 2nd, 1984, Bhopal faced a disaster unlike any other in industrial history. A Union Carbide pesticide plant accident released nearly 30 tons of methyl isocyanate, a super toxic gas, turning the city into a giant gas chamber. It was a nightmare – over 600,000 people were exposed, thousands died, and countless others were left struggling to breathe, blind, and in terrible pain. Not many people know about the stationmaster who risked his life to save others during this tragedy.
This is the story of Ghulam Dastagir, a true unsung hero. Without him, many more people would have died.
On the evening of December 2nd, 1984, Dastagir was finishing up some paperwork in his office. He was still there at 1 a.m. when he went to check on the Gorakhpur Mumbai Express. As he stepped onto the platform, his eyes started to burn, and his throat itched.
He didn’t know poisonous fumes from the Union Carbide factory were sneaking into the station. He started choking, unaware that 23 of his coworkers, including his boss, station superintendent Harish Dhurve, were already dead. Dhurve had apparently heard about the gas and tried to stop trains before collapsing in his office. Dastagir’s own bad health and experience told him something was seriously wrong, especially when he couldn’t reach the station master. He immediately warned nearby stations in Vidisha and Itarsi to stop all trains going to Bhopal.
That night, his quick thinking saved thousands of lives. But he didn’t stop there. The station was filling with people desperate to escape the fumes – some gasping, some vomiting, most crying. Dastagir stayed on duty, running between platforms, helping and comforting victims. He also sent an urgent call for medical help to nearby railway offices. Four ambulances with paramedics and doctors arrived. It was winter, and the gas hung low to the ground, a thick, poisonous haze.
The disaster didn’t spare him, though. He lost one son that night, and another got a lifelong skin infection. Dastagir spent his last 19 years in and out of hospitals, developing a painful throat growth from the fumes. When he died in 2003, his death certificate listed diseases directly caused by the gas. There’s a memorial on platform 1 for those who died in the line of duty on December 3rd, 1984, but Dastagir, who died later, isn’t included. He’s a forgotten hero whose dedication saved countless lives – a story that deserves to be remembered.
RE: Fact #28 (NYC’s Fake Subway Ventilation Buildings) – Fake oil well buildings are all over LA.
Michigan’s got some messed-up roads on top of the good ones.
RE: Fact #41 (London Necropolis Railway for the Dead) – Lots of Sydney trains whiz past this old, unused station called Mausoleum. They used to take the dearly departed there to Rookwood Cemetery. It’s a pretty building, actually.
RE: Fact #7 (Tokyo Rail Line Lowered Overnight) – Their trains are crazy fast and efficient. Mess with the schedule, and you’ll get hit with some serious fines.
NJ Transit’s always late, and the Governor is probably chilling in his mansion, munching on a pork roll and laughing his head off.
RE: Fact #28 (NYC’s Fake Subway Ventilation Buildings) – NYC has one fake building; the others are just vents—the article says so.
New York City’s only real building is one; the others are just ventilation shafts for the lizard people below.
Wait, what? The article says there are like six or seven buildings in New York that look normal, but they’re actually just for ventilation.
Only one’s a house, really. The rest are bridge and tunnel parts and stuff.
RE: Fact #6 (Caltrain’s College Park station) – I took this train to school every day back in high school. The “station”—just a concrete slab with a ticket machine—is practically nothing to maintain. It got me to this amazing school far from my neighborhood, and it was a huge part of my education. Plus, that stop’s been there for over a hundred years!
Caltrain needs to get its act together and focus on electrification, not pick on a perfectly good stop that serves Bellarmine and Santa Clara.
The electrification project’s almost done; they’re just testing things out now.
That’s awesome! I’ve heard whispers about this forever. It’s only 51 miles – crazy how much red tape they had to cut through to get this done.
RE: Fact #20 (London Underground Getting Hotter) – Riding the tube in summer is a total nightmare.
That’s a bit worrying. Sounds stuffy in there.
Trains pump air through the tunnels. It’s fine until things stop, then it gets awful fast.
Those tunnels were freezing when they first built them – a total oversight! They’ve tried to fix it with better ventilation in the newer stations, but some of the older ones are still pretty drafty.
RE: Fact #35 (Baboon Worked as Signalman) – Think about being the guy who has to polish off half a baboon’s weekly beer supply.
A worker, who was missing a limb, got a baboon to help him out at work. I bet they chilled together after a long week and cracked open a couple of beers.
Half’s for payment, the other half is because I love you and wanted to share anyway.
I’m going to be laughing about this all week!
Did the baboon get his share?
Don’t try taking a half-empty beer bottle from a baboon. That won’t end well.
Picture this: having to wrestle half a bottle of beer away from a baboon every single week.
RE: Fact #41 (London Necropolis Railway for the Dead) – One station had a pub that put up a sign saying, “We sell booze!”
RE: Fact #40 (Artist Kept 22-Year Promise) – For anyone curious, that’s Dieter Meier, the singer from Yello. They’re famous for songs like “The Race” and “Oh Yeah,” which were in *Ferris Bueller’s Day Off*.
RE: Fact #20 (London Underground Getting Hotter) – Is this just years of leftover heat? Would turning off the trains for a couple of weeks cool things down enough to last another 20 years or so?
RE: Fact #14 (Treblinka’s Fake Railway Station) – Crazy, right? Painting hands on a fake clock to trick people you’re helping to kill thousands.
Picture this: you’re a new prisoner, watching the clock tick closer, only to see the hands are painted. The confusion and fear that hits you next? Totally nuts.
Those Holocaust movies are brutal. The kapos would scream at everyone to cooperate, get in the showers, promising hot food afterward if they behaved. They’d even remind them of their hook number to get their clothes back. Then, they’d clean up the bodies and start all over. Savage.
RE: Fact #12 (WWII Bombing Created 110 Ponds) – So, are you saying we can just blow things up and fix the environment?
A smaller nuke war? Yeah, that’ll speed up mutations pretty quickly.
Something something patrolling the Mojave…
RE: Fact #26 (Secretly Built Romanian Metro Station) – She was pretty clueless, so that explanation isn’t surprising.
They were really not the sharpest tools in the shed. Their deaths were probably the best thing that ever happened to them.
Shot by a firing squad in 1989.
The Ceaucescus gave themselves so many fake degrees and titles, it’s hilarious. Elena claimed to be a chemistry PhD, but that was just her word for it. And get this – she apparently said “CO2” as “COTWO,” which became her nickname!
RE: Fact #9 (NYC’s Hidden Abandoned Station) – I’m thinking of getting all dressed up in a 1940s suit and suitcase, hanging out at that old station, and watching the trains go by.
RE: Fact #23 (UK’s Underground Mail Railway) – It was five times pricier than driving, so it’s kinda crazy it lasted that long. But hey, it was five times cooler, so I guess it worked out.
The union reckoned it was actually three times pricier, saying the railway was deliberately run down and only used at a third of its potential. Even though a London report said to keep it open, they shut it down early on May 31st, 2003.
Union Math: Let’s just look at everything except what the union workers cost.