Train station
A train station, railroad station, or railroad depot (mainly North American terminology) and railway station (mainly UK and other Anglophone countries) is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing such ancillary services as ticket sales, waiting rooms, and baggage/freight service. Stations on a single-track line often have a passing loop to accommodate trains travelling in opposite direction.[1]
Locations at which passengers only occasionally board or leave a train, sometimes consisting of a short platform and a waiting area but sometimes indicated by no more than a sign, are variously referred to as "stops", "flag stops", "halts", or "provisional stopping places". The stations themselves may be at ground level, underground, or elevated. Connections may be available to intersecting rail lines or other transport modes such as buses, trams, or other rapid transit systems.
Train station is the terminology typically used in the U.S.[2] In Europe, the terms train station and railway station are both commonly used, with railroad being obsolete.[3][4][5] In British Commonwealth nations usage, where railway station is the traditional term, the word station is commonly understood to mean a railway station unless otherwise specified.[6]
In the United States, the term depot is sometimes used as an alternative name for station, along with the compound forms train depot, railway depot, and railroad depot—it is used for both passenger and freight facilities.[7] The term depot is not used in reference to vehicle maintenance facilities in the U.S., whereas it is used as such in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The world's first recorded railway station, for trains drawn by horses rather than engined locomotives, began passenger service in 1807.[12] It was The Mount in Swansea, Wales, on the Oystermouth (later the Swansea and Mumbles) Railway.[13] The world's oldest station for engined trains was at Heighington, on the Stockton and Darlington railway in north-east England built by George Stephenson in the early 19th century, operated by locomotive Locomotion No. 1. The station opened in 1827 and was in use until the 1970s. The building, Grade II*-listed, was in bad condition, but was restored in 1984 as an inn. The inn closed in 2017; in 2024 there were plans to renovate the derelict station in time for the 200th anniversary of the opening of the railway line.[14]
The two-storey Mount Clare station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, which survives as a museum, first saw passenger service as the terminus of the horse-drawn Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on 22 May 1830.[15]
