Trivia: Biggest towns and cities without a railway station (international edition)

[Comstock]

I was going to be a smartarse and open with Kinshasa or Phnom Penh, but it seems both Congo and Cambodia have trains again.

Las Vegas doesn't have any trains til next year, but I'm sure there are bigger places out there.

 

[30907]

Looking at my ERT, Libya, Chad, Niger, Somalia and Uganda are large countries that have no trains ATM (Uganda might get them back soon and Kampala is a pretty big city).
However I suspect there are larger cities in the USA or possibly South America.

 

[alistairlees]

Kabul has to be in with a shout. Baghdad had not trains for a while too (but has them again).

 

[urbophile]

Louisville and several other US cities.

 

[dutchflyer]

define station more clearly: If only national railways are meant, then in NL it is places like Amstelveen, Vlaardingen (at the mo only rail-replace-bus anyway), Drachten which have like 5ö/6ö.ööö people. But the first 2 have metro or going to get it.
Next comes a whole host of places with around 3ök people with just bus.
In Germany recently were mentioned some places with around 5ök people with just bus.
But in general Switzerland, Belgium will have trains and thus stations in about any town with more as 2ök people or even 1ök.
Laos has only some 2 km railway at the mo coming in from Thailand, debatable if that serves its capital, which has around 2öök people-Vientiane.
In the south of Vnam are some cities in the river delta that are quoted as to have like 5öök-1mln people and just boat and some bus.
Indonesia on some islands without rail also has fairly big cities, touch to be honest they very much give the impression of a sleepy provincial town of maybe 4ö/5ök people in Europe. Ditto for Phillippines.
(sorry-far out and this computer does not seem to have proper zero to be found).
Oh-and about all those large US-cities will mostly still have stations, las Vegas certainly does, but no passenger trains. There the Greyhound-bus uses it.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Columbus, population c 2m and state capital of Ohio, has the dubious honour of the largest city in the USA without passenger rail. It has diddly squat - no Amtrak, commuter rail, light rail or metro. A lot of very large US cities have only a single daily, or even thrice weekly, Amtrak service often at inconvenient times in the middle of the night at remote 'Amshack' stations.

 

[Catracho]

So what exactly are we talking about? No railway station at all? No passenger railway station? Station yes but no services provided? Does it count when the only services operating are heritage trains? Because if not, then my money is on Bogotá (population 7+ million, 10+ in the metropolitan area) with only the Tren Turistico de la Sabana providing any kind of passenger service at the moment. No rail connection at all (no passenger, no freight, no metro, no light rail, no tram, no nothing) should be Kabul, with a population of 4 to 5 million people.

 

[Comstock]

Just to be clear I did mean a railway station with passenger trains actually going to it.

A station without trains is as much use as a pub with no beer!

 

[Calthrop]

Columbus, population c 2m and state capital of Ohio, has the dubious honour of the largest city in the USA without passenger rail. It has diddly squat - no Amtrak, commuter rail, light rail or metro. A lot of very large US cities have only a single daily, or even thrice weekly, Amtrak service often at inconvenient times in the middle of the night at remote 'Amshack' stations.

This emboldens me to put forward my favourite "big city in the middle of nowhere": Manaus, Brazil -- on a par with Columbus population-wise (just over 2 million inhabitants). A place which has never been on a railway route, and seems unlikely ever to be so. (Manaus did have trams until 1957.)

 

[Comstock]

Manaus doesn't even seem to have very much in the way of road connections to the rest of Brazil, only a highway north to Venezuela.

How would you get from Manaus to, say Rio....or is it simply the case that you don't?

 

[Calthrop]

Maybe there's an old joke in Brazil, in which the people of Amazonas State are supposed to be dimwits? "If I were going to Rio, I wouldn't start from here."

 

[superalbs]

How would you get from Manaus to, say Rio....or is it simply the case that you don't?

www.rome2rio.com suggests this route via Venezuela, Colombia, Ecaudor, Peru, and Bolivia. A diversion of over 5000 miles, taking 6.5 days.

 

[MarcVD]

But in general Switzerland, Belgium will have trains and thus stations in about any town with more as 2ök people or even 1ök.

Not quite...

In Belgium, the biggest city with no rail at all is Maasmechelen, population 40.000 approx. There used to be a railway line there, don't remember when it closed, but it would be very easy to get it back, I don't even understand how it has never been proposed.

Then the second one is also in Flanders, Hamme, population 20.000, used to be on a line from Denrdermonde to Sint Nikklaas cut since 1945. Impossible to get it back because of urbanisation of the area.

In Wallonia, it is Jodoigne, population 15000. Would be easy to get back if the willingness was there.

 

[paddington]

Manaus doesn't even seem to have very much in the way of road connections to the rest of Brazil, only a highway north to Venezuela.

How would you get from Manaus to, say Rio....or is it simply the case that you don't?

Err, you would fly.

 

[Dougal2345]

I suppose Tirana might count, it's got a population of 400,000 apparently, and the nearest station is about 7km outside the city and that has very limited services.

Off topic, as it still has a couple of stations, but Belgrade recently closed its central station and ripped up all the track. What they're left with now is what the UK would have if it only built HS2 as far as Old Oak Common instead of Euston...

 

[MarcVD]

Plus this small Topcider station hosting the trains to the south.

 

[MarcVD]

As far as I can see, no trains at all anymore in Gaziantep, Turkey, population 1,8M. Trains were suspended years ago for engineering works, which are now finished apparently, but trains are not back yet, and nobody knows when they will be.

 

[parkender102]

I was going to be a smartarse and open with Kinshasa or Phnom Penh, but it seems both Congo and Cambodia have trains again.

Las Vegas doesn't have any trains til next year, but I'm sure there are bigger places out there.

In 1989 we travelled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on the train arriving at Union Plaza Hotel and Casino station. Possibly the train was the Desert Wind? You exited the train straight into the Casino which was bizarre! I believe it was discontinued a few years later but it's good news if they are reinstating the rail service. I think the journey took 4 or 5 Hours. It was February and crossing the desert in the pitch black night and seeing all the tiny lights in the distance wondering if it was Las Vegas and they just got bigger and bigger and bigger........................

 

[Giugiaro]

It was claimed in 2005 that Viseu was the biggest European city without a railway connection.

Funny given this place once had two narrow gauge lines terminating here. All physical evidence of ever there being a station have almost been completely destroyed and erased from sight over the past 30 years.

The place where once stood the station is (rather ironically) called Avenida da Europa (Europe Avenue).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Off topic, as it still has a couple of stations, but Belgrade recently closed its central station and ripped up all the track. What they're left with now is what the UK would have if it only built HS2 as far as Old Oak Common instead of Euston...

...and didn't carry out any of the regeneration project of OOC either, basically dumping the station in the middle of an abandoned field with few if any facilities.

 

[alistairlees]

As I mentioned a bit earlier, Kabul with 4.8m people, will take some beating. There probably is somewhere though!

 

[ac6000cw]

In 1989 we travelled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on the train arriving at Union Plaza Hotel and Casino station. Possibly the train was the Desert Wind? You exited the train straight into the Casino which was bizarre! I believe it was discontinued a few years later but it's good news if they are reinstating the railservice.

Yes, it was the 'Desert Wind' (Chicago - Denver - Salt Lake - LA). The 'Pioneer' (Chicago - Denver - Ogden - Portland) was discontinued at the same time. I traveled on both of them a few days before they ceased in May 1997. Between Chicago and Denver they were combined with the California Zephyr into one mammoth train.

 

[gysev]

Not quite...

In Belgium, the biggest city with no rail at all is Maasmechelen, population 40.000 approx. There used to be a railway line there, don't remember when it closed, but it would be very easy to get it back, I don't even understand how it has never been proposed.

Then the second one is also in Flanders, Hamme, population 20.000, used to be on a line from Denrdermonde to Sint Nikklaas cut since 1945. Impossible to get it back because of urbanisation of the area.

In Wallonia, it is Jodoigne, population 15000. Would be easy to get back if the willingness was there.

Genk - Maasmechelen closed in 1982 (freight until 1992) while Dendermonde - Sint-Niklaas lost its passenger service in 1957. Hamme continued to have a freight service until 1982.

The largest town in Wallonia without a railway would be Bastogne, the Libramont - Bastogne line closing in 1993.

 

[Calthrop]

The largest town in Wallonia without a railway would be Bastogne, the Libramont - Bastogne line closing in 1993.

As in the well-known saying associated with that town: "Aw, nuts !"

 

[parkender102]

Yes, it was the 'Desert Wind' (Chicago - Denver - Salt Lake - LA). The 'Pioneer' (Chicago - Denver - Ogden - Portland) was discontinued at the same time. I traveled on both of them a few days before they ceased in May 1997. Between Chicago and Denver they were combined with the California Zephyr into one mammoth train.

Cheers - it was a 6 week Amtrak Pass for US$250 we were travelling on and we must have travelled on all those great routes. I particularly liked the small booklet you were handed when boarding that detailed all the points of interest along the route. In 6 weeks we did LA - Las Vegas - Glenwood Springs - Chicago - New Orleans - Memphis - Houston - Dallas - LA (again!) - San Francisco - Seattle - Chicago (Again) - Kissimee - New York. Where the train didn't go we hired a car to visit Miami, Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon. I'm pretty sure the train went as far as Miami but was booked solid so we couldn't travel by train that far.

 

[ian959]

Cebu City in the Philippines has a metro-area population of over 3 million people and is no where near a railway line. By the time it gets a planned light rail system, the population will likely be around 4 million plus. Davao City in the Philippines has a metro-area population of around 3 million too, but will get an (under construction) heavy railway line soon (2022).

 

[MarcVD]

Technically, I think that the biggest city with no heavy rail station is Singapore, more than 5M people. They have a metro system and some light rail, but no real trains since they closed their rail station on the line to Malaysia in 2011. You don't have to go very far to find one, though, as the origin station of the line to Kuala Lumpur is now just on the other side of the border.