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Concept
Train station
Summary
A train station, railway station, railroad station, or railway depot 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. If a station is on a single-track line, it often has a passing loop to facilitate traffic movements.
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. and more generally now in the UK. In Europe, the terms train station and railway station are both commonly used, with railroad being obsolete. 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.
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. 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 was The Mount on the Oystermouth Railway (later to be known as the Swansea and Mumbles) in Swansea, Wales, which began passenger service in 1807, although the trains were horsedrawn rather than by locomotives.
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.
Official source
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