11 Hidden ABANDONED SUBWAYS & Ghost Stations

why do underground railway stations become abandoned maybe the upkeep is too much and the cost cannot be met Wars and depression can also add to the upkeep due to lack of funds in other cases people preferred cows to trains some of these stations were built as works of art in themselves and is said to see their demise the following pinch thousands each have their story to tell whether wants grandiose designs now lie in ruins [Music] number 11 can franc International railway station known as one of the largest the most glamorous railway stages in the world the can Frank international railway station was the height of elegance in this day nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains and situated on the Spanish side of the border the station opened its doors in 1928 many wealthy travelers would marvel at the stylish can Frank architecture at the beginning of World War two the railway was used as a safe haven for Jewish refugees fleeing occupied Europe however his occupation was soon taken over by the Spanish dictator Franco he proudly showcased this station to Hitler resulting in Germany taking control of the station the Nazis used the station to transport tons of looted gold at the end of World War two the same trains that at once helped thousands of Jews flee the Holocaust we used by the Nazi war criminals to evade capture the station returned to normal use during the 1950s and 60s and was even used as a set in the movie Doctor Zhivago however this once grande station was soon left abandoned and forgotten after a large locomotive accident the station has since fallen prey to vandals leading to crumbling walls and disrepair finally author Ken Frank roller station may look long gone forgotten its old tunnels were evacuated in 1985 Spanish physicists have assists that Ken Frank would be the perfect site for an underground astroparticle laboratory and it is currently in used in studies to unlock the mysteries of dark matter number 10 City Hall loop New York New York City Hall loop was the original southern terminal of the first line of New York City subway which opened on October the 27th nineteen hundred and four and is located underneath the public area in front of City Hall it was designed to be the showpiece of the new subway the platform and mezzanine feature amazing gustavinho tiles skylights and colored glass tiles and brush chandeliers the station was built on a curve and could only accommodate five car trains which proved to be inefficient as Subway ridership grew due to the infrastructural shortfalls as well as proximity the nearby Brooklyn Bridge station passenger service was discontinued in December the 31st 1945 this beautiful structure laid dormant for 50 years until 1995 when federal grant money was sought to reopen the station as a branch of the New York transit museum which occasionally ran tours of the station unfortunately museum tours ceased in late 1998 as the station was declared a security risk due to overseas terrorist bombings by the Giuliani administration and plans for museum annex were abandoned and museum tour ceased so yet again this wonderful piece of work became dormant number nine Chambery Station Madrid Spain designed by the architect Antoni and Palacios it was opened in October 1919 it was one of the original eight stations there serve Madrid's first metro line this was the first such project in Spain and the act that was inspired by the look at the Parisian stations at the time the architect used bright colorful materials in the hallways panels passages and platform finishes extensively using tiles and other white and cobalt blue ceramic pieces in the 1960s due to increased passenger traffic it was decided to upgrade metro line one to allow commissioning new trains with greater capacity up to six cars to accommodate this the platform's of all states needed to be expanded but given the technical possible even extend ancillary station and Xbox Emily to those of two other main stations the Ministry of Public Works decided to close it in 1966 the station remained unused for over 40 years an external access had been bricked up conserving massively everyday objects at the time such as billboards turnstiles and even paper money but unfortunately the station would eventually be vandalized in August 2006 restoration work began with the view to turnings facilities into Museum and in March 2008 it was reopened number 8 waldorf-astoria train platform new york new york the walls of the story platform is not exactly a train station of its own which was built atop one of Grand Central terminal's and was constructed from 1903 to 1913 this now barren subterranean space once served as a means to discreetly transport the hotel has more famous guests like General Pershing who first allegedly used the platform in 1938 the most famous story about the world of the story platform features President Roosevelt in which he used it to transfer himself into an employed custom a train car to apparently hide the fact that he used a wheelchair the vehicle would commute him straight to hotel a Mazama to his protection and then his train car is still on the platform another famous story is that the platform also served as an underground party space for Andy Warhol in 1965 today the platform is unused and is restricted to any passenger service and has blocked the visitors number seven of the cheap station London England hold it is a closed station on London Underground located in central London there was opened in 1907 originally under the name of strand certain OC by a shuttle train on having low passenger numbers the station and branch were considered for close just several times service was offered only during weekday peak hours from 1962 and discontinued in 1994 when the cost of replacing the lifts was considered too high for the income generated parts of the station and the running tunnels we used drink both world wars to shelter artworks from London's public galleries and museums from bombing the station has long been popular as a filming location and has appeared as itself and has other London Underground stations in a number of films in recognition of its historical significance the station is a great - listed building which means it is protected number six Botanic Garden station Glasgow Scotland the station was opened on the 10th of August 1896 by the Glasgow Central Railway the station building was on ground level and the platform's were underground beneath the Glasgow Botanic Gardens it was closed between the 1st of January 1917 and the second of March 1919 used a wartime economy and closed permanently to passengers on the 6th of February 1939 with the line being closed on the 5th October 1964 the station building was an ornate red brick structure with two towers spawning a clock and a Caledonian Railway monogram topped by domes reminiscent of a Russian Orthodox Church the building was converted into shops after the status 1939 closure and by the late 1960s which occupied by a popular cafe a nightclub called sergeant pepper's and later a plumbers shop it was damaged by fire in 1970 the site of botanic garden station remains derelict to this day more than 40 years after the fire the platform's still remain underground what they can be seen from above to still open air vents in Botanic Gardens and the floor of the building is still visible within the fenced off section of the gardens marking where it stood the platform's are accessible via the tunnel portal of the Kirkley end of the gardens an abandoned tramway chaos designed in the same style as a building and built in 1993 is still present at the site the site is heavily overgrown vandalized and dilapidated and is considered dangerous to enter and there are no current plans to redevelop the site number 5 the Chicago tunnel company starting in 1899 the Illinois telephone and telegraph company like under most of downtown Chicago creating nearly 62 miles of tunnels 6 feet wide by 7 and a half feet tall their original intention was the houses telephone cable but the company also installed tracks to make getting around easier spotting an opportunity they renamed their business the Chicago tunnel company in 1906 and became an underground delivery service at their peak use the tunnels lived around 150 small locomotives hauling 3,300 miniature train cars that delivered 600,000 tons of freight every day using special elevators connected to the tunnels businesses like Marshall Fields would get new clothing and shoe shipments from the rail but delivering coal for furnaces was the company's bread-and-butter however by the late 1940s most buildings were using natural gas for heat and those still using coal were getting it by truck was much cheaper business declined until the company went bankrupt and the tunnels were sealed in 1959 shortly after scrap metal thieves cleaned out the tunnels including still doors that were meant to close off the passageways that ran under the Chicago River the rails were virtually forgotten until 1992 when a pile driver in Chicago River in a freight train tunneled wore a small crack eventually became a 20-foot hole allowing over 100 million gallons of water to flood the tunnels many downtown buildings still had basement connections to the railway so as the water rose underground it flooded those buildings to ruin in stock and storage rooms shutting down Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Board of Trade and shorting out electrical power for blocks days later the hole was repaired and the water was pumped out the cleanup cost an estimated damage to downtown business was more than 1 billion dollars since then many sections of the tunnel have been closed off while other branches have come full circle they once again being used to house telecommunication wires and maybe in the near future they will again use it to again move goods instead of blocking streets for those delivery trucks number 4 Paris Metro the Paris Metro beautifully decorative and influenced by Art Nouveau is not as extensive as London's tube but serves more stations 300 in total so it's hardly surprising that a few ghost stations look on the network most of the Paris ghost stations were closed at the outset of World War two many never reopened while others like Saint Martin had a brief resurgence before falling into abandonment fostering a sense of mystery over Parisians second only to the Paris catacombs in terms of urban exploration in some cases like Victor Hugo and Porte a day of Versailles stations platforms were moved to accommodate longer trains leaving all the ones abandoned in others entire stations were deserted or relocated and now stands silent but not forgotten beyond heavy iron gates some stations including the old terminus of garage inaud closed in 1942 have been returned to use as trench stations for student drivers number three lower Bay Toronto opened in 1954 with four lines and sixty nine stations the Toronto's subway isn't as ole extensive or busy as those of London Paris and New York but still boasts several abandoned stations the most famous is an abandoned platform beneath the existing base station learners lower Bay opened in 1966 this platform was only active for six months while insuline service trials were performed the experiment was deemed a failure largely because delays anywhere quickly cascaded to affect the entire system also as the stations have not been laid out effectively for cross-platform interchange trains traveling east from San Jorge and west from younger alternate between the two levels leading passengers to wait on the stairs in between the levels since they were unable to tell which platform would receive the next train causing a sort of confusion abandoned for 45 years lower Bay has been used in movies like don't say a word and Johnny mnemonic considered a holy grail of urban exploration one entrance has recently been bricked up and security cameras installed so low of a station was Fifi opened to the public in 2007 2008 and 2010 for the first time since 1966 number 2 Cincinnati subway during the first part of the 20th century Cincinnati was one of the largest cities in the country with a growth rate indeed the same of Chicago in New York City unlike those cities Cincinnati had a problem with dangerous busy streets so in 1916 a 60-mile mass transit system was proposed to alleviate the congestion the project included above-ground and underground rails with much of the latter to be constructed by tearing up the Miami and Erie Canal a man-made waterway that had fallen disuse six million dollars in bonds were approved in April 1916 but America had entered World War one just 11 days before and the federal government soon but a freeze on all bond issues when the war was over the price of steel and concrete had skyrocketed see the original six million was now insufficient a modified plan eliminated some of the original 17 stations and cut the track down to six miles servicing only in the western half of the city with the new plan construction began in 1920 and lasted until 1925 when the six million dollars ran out during that time two miles of 26 foot wide subway tunnels were built where the canal had been and then covered by a new Street Central Parkway craning a major thoroughfare for buff ground traffic until more money could be raised there were no tracks or train cars but the infrastructure was in place for the subways eventual completion while city governments argue over what to do next the stock market crashed in 1929 world war ii stalled the project and by the 1950s America was in love with his automobiles so the demand for mass transit dried up today the tunnel sits unused an unfinished finale eighty-five years the entrance to the grand staircase that leads to the tunnel has been closed than most of the above-ground stations had been torn down there's really very little evidence that the tunnel even exists which is perfectly fine to some people's embarrassed by the projects history over the years there have been numerous attempts to find some use for the tunnel but none have been successful in 2002 a proposal for mass transit was again considered but the idea was voted down number one Rochester subway New York active from 1927 to 1956 the Rochester subway officially called Rochester industrial and rapid transit railway was more successful than its counterpart in Cincinnati but not much adapted from the abandoned Erie Canal the Rochester subway brand single Street cars with interurban lines routed into the tunnels to ease traffic congestion on the streets above but the rise of the car but the last nail in the subways coffin and in his stood abandoned for more than half a century the line was operated on a contract basis by New York state railways until Rochester transit corporation took over in 1938 the last day of passenger service was June the 30th 1956 porters of the right-of-way we use for expressway construction while the rest was abandoned and filled in over the years the largest remaining section is a stretch of underground tunnel under Broad Street from exchange Street to an intersection of court Street and South Avenue the center of much controversy Larry Mercer described the subway as either a giant hole waiting to be filled with dirt or in him pressive acid in a city that needs to revitalize its downtown after spending 1.2 million a year to maintain the tunnels city officials finally decided to fill some of them in despite the potential value to the city work began in 2010 and an estimated cost of 60 million dollars [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 584,032

Rating: 4.7243142 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned, train stations, abandoned subways, abandoned train stations, abandoned ghost stations, ghost stations, abandoned tunnels

Id: dpnjeP90pAw

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2018