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”
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.
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.
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!
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.