Why do European cities have so many railroad stations?

interesting . got any dates ? Maybe NZ's first railway beat London!

David Benton wrote:I would presume too , that most travel in the old days was from towns to the main city . not from a town on one side of the city , to a town on the other side of the city . Today , with urban spreawl and decentralisation , there is alot more need for service through or around the main city .

Very early on the railways became commuter routes. The better off took the opportunity to move out of the smell of the city. New suburbs grew up almost at once.

Raritan Express wrote:

Epsilon wrote:

David Benton wrote:Well in Londons case , it was because there was 8 or so different railway companies serving London . Kings cross and St Pancras are virtually next door to each other .

It was actually once quite the same in many American cities- for example, before North and South Station opened in Boston, all the the railroad companies built their own terminals. (and thanks to mergers, by 1890 the Boston and Maine and the New Haven both had three entirely separate terminals) In the US, there was a movement to build "Union Stations" that combined all the various railroads terminals into one (or in Boston's case two), but this didn't happen to nearly the same extent in Europe.

New York (City) is a great example of this. Although many think (subcontiously) the NYC ends outside of Manhatten, it doesn't. There are many train stations in NYC (not counting the subway) like NYP and GCT (the 2 that are most famous), Flatbush Avenue, Long Island City, Jamaica Station, WTC, Harlem-125th St, and many others that would take too long to list.

New York is an interesting example, mainly because its termini are actually in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. Don't forget Hoboken.

In London's case, the termini are actually built depending on where the railroad will lead. Sometimes this becomes overly redundant, resulting in such matches as Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street (the only terminus in London without a tube connection) and the South London mess. Also, with the UK's privatisation, each station has a main service provider which simplifies routing on the mutitude of companies.

Blackfriars - Southeastern
Canon Street - Southeastern
Charing Cross - Southern and Southeastern
Euston - Virgin Trains
Fenchurch Street - c2c
King's Cross - GNER
Liverpool Street - one
London Bridge - Southern and Southeastern
Marleybone - Chiltern Railways
Moorgate - First Capital Connect
Paddington - First Great Western
St Pancras - East Midlands Trains (starts 11 November)
Victoria - Southern and Southeastern
Waterloo - South West Trains
Waterloo East - Southern and Southeastern

I prefer London's method, especially with most connecting to the Circle Line. This is way the multi-terminus method fails in the US, there is no line that connects major termini directly.

In the case of London there is also the unnecessary duplication of stations caused by the uncooordinated operation of private enterprise. As we are reminded just now with the opening of St Pancras as the International station the Midland Railway formerly used Kings Cross next door and built their own station for pure swank - to show that the Midland Men had arrived, with their beer from Derby.

In the 1920s the Midland became part of the LMS company and declined a bit. Further west Marylebone opened when a similar line was built to the capital from the east Midlands - the Great Central. That duplicated both the Midland route and the Northwestern route, and was abandoned in the 1960s - though its revival would be useful as it was a Continental gauged route, able to take full sized trains.

The stations south of the river are also unnecessary duplication. At least one of these was abandoned when the Thamelink route was built. Holborn Viaduct was yet another duplicated station and was replaced by a through station at St Pauls.

It's a great pity that the governments of the early railway building age couldn't have decreed no more than four terminals. The Circle Line doesn't cover them all. Fenchurch street is not on it. And the proposed Crossrail misses out what will be the most important one at St Pancras. It's a great nuisance to have so many stations.
Berlin was fortunate in being flattened during the second world war and so has a single large new central station.
(Heavy irony).

A map of London and its 12 terminus stations:
http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map ... n-area.gif

Paris is in a similar situation with 4 or 5 stations:
http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map ... s-area.gif

Nearly all trains ends in Paris, and one has to take the subway to go from one terminus to another if for its trip there are not direct trains. However, some trains skip Paris stopping outside the city to the Airport and EuroDisney.

Berlin has however built a station (Hauptbahnhof or Hbf) where the old east-west railway cross the new north-south line, so changing train is very easy:

http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map ... n-area.gif

Berlin's method is surely better than London and Paris' ones. Vienna/Wien has under construction a new station following Berlin's method, it willr eplace two terminus stations.

Many other cities in Europe have one terminus station where all long distance trains stops, and maybe more station for local traffic, like Rome:
http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map ... a-area.gif (Termini is for long distance trains, Flaminio for regional)
Or Milan:
http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map ... o-area.gif (Centrale for long distance, and Porta Garibaldi, Porta Genova, Cadorna for regional trains)

Usually the stations in Europe were built by different companies. Like in Milan, Cadorna station is owned by a separate company than the others (both are public companies, the first owned by the regional governement, the others by the state).

(maps taken from http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/)

george matthews wrote:...
So, basically it depends on whether the system was planned or left to private enterprise. In the case of railways I have no doubt that planning is best.

Not really.

In most countries the first railways were private enterprises.
Still making things more difficult in Germany and Italia was the fact that Italy and Germany do not exist befor 1866 resp. 1870.

Examples:

Hamburg had 4 Stations before the Hauptbahnhof entered service in 1906:
- Berliner Bahnhof (for trains to and from Berlin)
- Lübecker Bahnhof (for trains to and from Luebeck)
- Hannoverscher Bahnhof (also called: Pariser Bahnhof, for trains to and from the South)
- Altona Hbf (Altona was'nt part of Hamburg before 1937) This station exists still today as Hamburg-Altona. Lines from the North - belonging to Danmark before 1864 - were routed to the Danish city of Altona and not to Hamburg.

Leipzig had 6 Stations before the Hauptbahnhof entered service in 1915:

- Bayerischer Bahnhof (Bavarian Station, for trains to and from Bavaria)
- Eilenburger Bahnhof (for trains to and from Cottbus)
- Dresdner Bahnhof (for trains to and from Dresden)
- Berliner Bahnof (for trains to and from Berlin)
- Magdeburger Bahnhof (for trains to and from Magdeburg, the Northwest)
- Thüringer Bahnhof (for trains to and from the Southwest)

Frankfurt had 4 Stations befor the Hauptbahnhof entered service in 1888:

- Taunusbahnhof (for trains to and from Wiesbaden)
- Main-Neckar-Bahnhof (for trains to and from Heidelberg and Mannheim)
- Main-Weser-Bahnhof (for trains to and from Kassel)
- Hanauer Bahnhof (for trains from the East, is today Ostbahnhof but only through station for local trians)[/b]

Railways came to Europe to connect ancient cities with historic centres. It was not possible to build railways across those densely built up areas of ancient buildings. American cities were new and often grew up around the new railways. Americans have little reluctance to pull down even quite new buildings. That is certainly one reason why London has a ring of stations on the edge of the central area. Paddington for example was built in the rural fringe, alongside the canal wharves of the Grand Junction canal. Only later did the city move up to the station and flow on outwards.

Only now is there a plan to build a line across London from east to west - Crossrail.

and that line will be deep underground to miss sewers / basements etc .

In Kiev, Ukraine The old Station was the original building built in the mid to late 1880's and remained that way up till the USSR broke up. A New Station was built across from the Old Station althow the main routes go North & South direction. The Old Station was connected to the Subway system so an above ground walkway from the new station to the old one was built. People departing the city going North and West by train get on a the New Station people departing South and East departing by train get on at the Old Station. Stations were added as the city grew under Soviet Rule this had a lot to do with moveing troops anywhere at anytime had the cold war heated up.

I learned this from my girlfriend who was born in Kiev, Ukraine.