We have all spent more time than we care to remember in stations waiting for missed connections or delayed trains. After the obligatory cup of tea (or a couple of tinnies if that’s more your thing) there is not much else to keep you entertained except huddling from the inevitable rain in the waiting room which, despite the ban, still has a waft of stale smoke.
But there are railway stations around the world that offer more than hot beverages and gloomy stationary stores. For your amusement and approval, here are some of the most beautiful railway stations of the world!
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10 Kiev-Pasazhyrskyi Railway Station, Kiev, Ukraine
Kiev Passenger Railway Station is Kiev’s main passenger railway station, serving more than 170,000 passengers per day. The station provides long-distance service including international, and a short-distance service to nearby regions.
It was originally opened in 1870 and was rebuilt in 1932 and 2001.
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9 Gare du Nord, Paris, France
Gare du Nord offers connections with several urban transportation lines. By the number of travelers it is the busiest railway station in Europe, seeing over 700,000 passengers daily making it one of the busiest railway stations in the world.
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8 Union Station, Washington DC, USA
Union Station is the grand ceremonial train station designed to be the entrance to Washington, D.C., when it opened in 1908.
WWII saw over 200,000 passengers using this terminal daily. It is one of the busiest and best-known places in Washington, D.C., visited by 32 million people each year and servicing 5.2 million passengers annually.
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7 Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin, Germany
Berlin Hauptbahnhof, (Berlin Central Station) is the main railway station in Berlin, Germany. Hosting 7 platforms and 16 tracks, it was designed by the Hamburg architecture firm and it began full operation in May 2006.
The station serves an estimated 50 million long-distance passengers and 86 million regional passengers annually!
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6 Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur Railway Station is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was completed in 1910 after originally replacing an older station which opened in 1886.
It underwent extensive renovations in 1987 and the station is most noted for its architecture, adopting a mixture of Eastern and Western designs.
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5 Shanghai Railway Station, Shanghai, China
Patrick Nagel
Originally opened in 1987, Shanghai Railway Station is one of the most important of the 4 main railway hubs servicing the country.
It is one of the top class railway stations in China and has been extensively expanded over the course of its life. On the 29th of May 2010 a major expansion saw the north building increased from 1,000 square meters to 15,560 square meters!
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4 Wellington Station, Wellington, New Zealand
J.christianson
Wellington Railway Station is the southern terminus of New Zealand’s North Island Main Trunk railway. In terms of number of services and in passenger numbers, it is New Zealand’s busiest railway station.
It's glazed-roof concourse has housed a number of different amenities over its life-span including - waiting rooms and toilets, a large dining room, a barber shop, book and fruit stalls and a first aid room. It used to home a nursery for smaller children while waiting for your train but this has since been removed.
Wellington station sees approximately 8 million passengers a year through its doors (29,000 passengers daily as of 2018).
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3 Grand Central Station, NYC, USA
Grand Central Terminal is a terminal station at Manhattan in New York City. It is the largest train station (by platform capacity) in the world with an eye-watering 44 platforms and 67 tracks along them.
It serviced just under 67 million passengers in 2017 and continues to be a US treasure and landmark.
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2 Beijing West Railway Station, Beijing, China
Beijing West Railway Station is located in western Beijing. It was commissioned in 1993 and opened in 1996. It used to hold the title of the largest railways station in Asia, but has since lost this title to the Shanghai Hongqiao railway station.
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1 Union Station, Los Angeles, USA
Union Station in Los Angeles, California, which opened in May 1939, is known as the “Last of the Great Railway Stations” built in the United States.
Costing approximately $11 million USD to build ($194,000,000.00 - 2017 adjusted for inflation) the one of a kind station has served Los Angeles citizens for 80 years and will continue to be a landmark and shining example of mixed architecture styles combined together.
Have you been to any of these train stations? Or maybe you’d like to recommend others for our top 10? Please leave a comment below 🙂
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