There's much to love about train stations: not only are they efficient, but they're sometimes travel destinations in their own right Stations such as Grand Central in New York and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai are renowned for their splendor But not all train stations stay operational; whether you realize it or not, dozens of once-lively stations have been abandoned by their cities From the mysterious ghost stations burrowed underneath Paris to a station in China allegedly built for military purposes, here are 18 photos of abandoned train stations and the history behind them Locals and lovers of the City of Light might think they know the city's metro system by heart but few know that a dozen "ghost" stations — stations that were constructed but never used — lie dormant underneath Paris Legend has it that the 12 stations shut down at the beginning of World War II Commissioned in 1923, Croix-Rouge is one such ghost station due to its proximity to another station, Sèvres -Babylon The platforms that run through Croix-Rouge are heavily graffitied, although, according to Huffington Post the walls still feature tiles that pre-date World War II In 2007, a graphic designer named Lauren Ungerer took advantage of Croix-Rouge's abandoned status, and installed an art piece on the Croix-Rouge's walls so that commuters would see flashes of his work as they whizzed by on the train Saint-Martin opened again for a brief period mostly due to the neighboring Strasbourg - Saint-Denis station Vintage ads from the 1930s are allegedly still plastered over some of the walls inside the Saint-Martin station today officials grant members of the public access to the elusive platform The 2001-film"Amélie" featured the Porte des Lilas-Cinéma station which was renamed "Abbesses" for the movie; additionally the ghost terminal was renamed "Gare de l'Est" for the film "Good Time." The station opened in 1921, but fell into disuse in 1939 The initial Victor Hugo station, built in 1900 had dangerously sharp turns that were difficult to maneuver safely so the station was rebuilt closer to another stop The Gare du Nord USFRT originally served as the terminus of Line 5 in Paris Chamberí station was one of eight original stops on the Metro’s first line in Spain The City Hall station in New York, which was opened on October 27, 1904 by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) due to its curving platforms and inability to accommodate larger trains Opened in 1904, the Worth Street subway station in New York was part of the original New York subway system, and around 200 feet long Though the station was lengthened twice — once in 1910 and then again in 1948 — Worth Street station officially closed in 1962 The Brooklyn Bridge station was expanded instead and renamed the Brooklyn Bridge — Worth Street station curious travelers can hop on the 4/5/6 lines and view the abandoned station's graffiti'd walls out the window The New York Transit Museum exhibit is located in a decommissioned Court Street station in Brooklyn. Court Street, which opened in 1936 was originally intended to operate as a pit-stop between local trains and express trains but ended up closing in 1946 due to its low level of traffic The station reopened as the New York Transit Museum on July 4 for the United States Bicentennial celebration visitors can view the vintage New York subway trains on display and learn about their history According to the Guardian was possibly constructed for strategic military use it primarily functioned as a twice-a-day stop for rural children on their way to school before its closure in 2007 Built in 1907 with the name "Strand," the station only offered service during peak hours on work days which cost the station passengers and traffic In 1994, the cost of renovating the station ended up being too high for the income it generated Cincinnati decided to build a subway system in the early 1900s when the river trade was at its peak; unfortunately such as budget redrafts and halted construction attempts before the project was scrapped in the late 1920s Today, visitors to Cincinnati can visit the underground subway tunnels as part of a "Walk and Talk" tour; the subway never reached completion and never transported a single customer.  The train yard, which opened in October According to Digital Cosmonaut, Pankow Heinersdorf used to be connected to one of Berlin's major railway lines and was designed like a giant train turntable Trains back then were designed to travel in one direction so when they had to return from whence they came the turntable literally spun the train back around Once modern trains began to expand in size around the 1990s the train yard wasn't able to accommodate their new lengths because the turntables themselves couldn't be built upon or enlarged closed in 1985 due to safety and size concerns; it was deemed too risky and difficult to expand the station to accommodate newer and longer trains Sign up here to get INSIDER's favorite stories straight to your inbox By 2020-06-22T14:00:00+01:00 Tram route M2 provides a direct link from Heinersdorf to the city centre GERMANY: The Berlin Senate has authorised transport operator BVG to start detailed design for a northern extension of tram route M2 to Blankenburg S-Bahn station Following a presentation by the capital’s Senator for Environment Transport & Climate Protection Regine Günther on June 9 the Senate commissioned BVG to finalise the preferred route for the 4·1 km extension and develop detailed draft plans These will identify any properties which would be affected by land take and examine the technical feasibility of mitigation measures The extension of route M2 would serve the eastern part of Heinersdorf and the new Blankenburg Süd urban development area before terminating at the S-Bahn station A multimodal study had recommended a tram extension as the best option to serve the expanding residential area connecting it with the S-Bahn to the west and the city centre to the south A financial assessment confirmed that the project would meet the requirements for Berlin to apply for federal funding towards the estimated €60m cost The preferred variant would follow the existing tram route along Aidastraße and then northeast to the intersection of Blankenburger Straße and Romain-Rolland-Straße Instead of continuing to the current terminus at Pankow-Heinersdorf the line would turn right and head north-east through Heinersdorf and Blankenburg Süd continuing along Bahnhofstrasse to the S-Bahn interchange the Senate said this route was not yet binding Public consultation is to begin shortly as part of the planning process Subject to completion of the technical studies and the formal planning approval the Senate believes that the extension could be completed by the end of 2022 GERMANY: Construction of the 2·2 km five-stop extension of Berlin tram line M10 westwards from Hauptbahnhof to Turmstraße U-Bahn station in the city’s Moabit district was officially launched with a groundbreaking ceremony on August 11 The €33m project is being funded by the Berlin Sustainable Development .. GERMANY: Final planning approval has been granted for a 2·1 km extension of Berlin tram route M10 from the Hauptbahnhof to Turmstraße U-Bahn station on Line U9 GERMANY: The supervisory board of Berlin transport operator BVG has approved plans to purchase 107 new trams from Bombardier to continue the city’s fleet replacement programme Site powered by Webvision Cloud This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page A member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Berlin stands in front of a sign that reads "There is no God but Allah." The community has just won approval for a new mosque in an eastern district of the German capital "The mosque is supposed to go up right here," says Günter Bronner a blustery white-haired man with glasses pushed up on his forehead who's lived in the neighborhood for 42 years He points to a drab piece of land at the end of the street where a defunct sauerkraut factory stands "They want to have a minaret with a muezzin who gives the call to prayer five times a day Officials gave the go-ahead last Friday for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association to build a new mosque in Heinersdorf an eastern neighborhood of Berlin where very few Muslims live It will be the first mosque on the once-Communist eastern side of the city and an organization of locals turned out Wednesday to protest "It was pretty brazen to hand this (approval) to us as a Christmas present," quipped Joachim Swietlik who claims that 90 percent of Heinersdorf doesn't want the mosque The row highlights a Europe-wide debate about the integration of Muslims ranging from calls for improved schooling and language teaching and tougher tests for immigrants to a discussion about whether veils and headscarves hinder the integration of Muslim women Ahmadiyya initially presented plans for the mosque to district officials in the spring of 2005 But Swietlik as well as others complain they know very little about the group which currently worships in a single-family house in Reinickendorf "They should build a mosque where their community is based," said Swietlik a 42-year-old auto glazier who was raised in the former East Germany "Or wherever a lot of Muslims live -- Kreuzberg referring to the districts where many Turks who came to West Berlin under guest worker programs during the 1960s settled and had kids and may not be welcome in Kreuzberg or Wedding They're a largely Pakistani sect of Muslims established in India in 1889 by a man called Mirsa Ghulam Ahmed Strict orthodox Islamic teaching sees Mohammed as the last prophet of God and the Ahmadis agree -- but they also recognize "shadow prophets," less important messengers of God This wrinkle in their beliefs separates them from many other Muslims The Pakistani government even declared them "not Muslim" in 1974 and in 1975 Ahmadiyya was kicked out of the Saudi Arabian-led Muslim World League The mosque in Heinersdorf is meant to be two stories high on the half-vacant sauerkraut factory site The smell of frying oil wafts over the property from a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken Ahmadiyya admits it has no particular reason to build there besides the inexpensive land but an Ahmadi mosque in Germany would not be unprecedented: There are 17 in the country already the protests stop as soon as we start to build the mosque," says the German head of Ahmadiyya a 56-year-old former hippie from western Germany who converted to Islam in the 1970s The group has no plans to oppose the protesters in Heinersdorf; in fact almost every mosque they've built has met with local protests and resistance He says it's a classic case of not-in-my-backyard "No one wants a mosque in their neighborhood," says Wagishauser The Pankow-Heinersdorf Citizens' Interest Group -- with 70 members -- managed to gather 6,000 signatures between the spring of 2006 and last Friday when their attempt to ban the mosque formally failed Their objections included traffic chaos and falling property prices but the longest paragraph in the petition expresses concern about "an Islamic-Ahmadiyya parallel society which would have the goal of overturning our liberal-democratic order." Ahmadiyya has about 30,000 members in Germany The group isn't considered a problem by the government who as Berlin's Senator of the Interior has to worry about terrorism says Ahmadiyya is a "rather orthodox club," but not a threat to the German constitution and not even the Citizens' Interest Group perceive the group as a terrorist threat A computer drawing of the planned mosque in Heinersdorf The building will go up on a vacant piece of land where a sauerkraut factory used to be The imam of the 200-strong Ahmadiyya group in Berlin is a Pakistani-born man with German citizenship called Abdul Basit Tariq He gives Friday prayers in German and spoke at Berlin's five-year commemoration of Sept When his wife knocks to let him know about a call on his cell phone which pokes out from behind the frosted-glass kitchen door -- to keep a male interviewer in their home from laying eyes on her He believes marriage is "God's will" and wants to protect his community from the easy morality of modern Europe as much as the Interest Group wants to keep Heinersdorf free of Ahmadiyya "We've tried to meet with representatives of the Ahmadiyya community," complains Swietlik "But these meetings always bring up new questions." He points out that 6,000 signatures on the petition represents a full 90 percent of Heinersdorf's 6,500 residents "Which brings us to a point we just don't understand," he said "Democracy is supposed to enforce the will of the people And when 90 percent of the people in a district like Heinersdorf are against the building of a mosque We don't understand why politicians don't line up behind us." a lean 49-year-old saleswoman with brown hair and wire-frame glasses who turned out for the candlelight vigil "We Heinersdorfers are afraid that radicals from the right and left will come here and make an issue out of this mosque." She may have been thinking of a meeting in March 2006 when Ahmadiyya held an information session in a Heinersdorf school gymnasium too many for everyone to find a seat -- which made the atmosphere tense even before the meeting was crashed by members of the German far right Police broke things up before the information session could start and led Ahmadiyya representatives out under special protection "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people") -- an anti-Communist phrase from the old East Germany -- and a lot of people in the gym took up the chant "We can do as many information sessions as we want," says Wagishauser "I can't even remember how much we've explained and discussed in all the places where we've wanted to build mosques Communism used to be the great threat; now it's Islam Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.