Dictionary

ghost station en · NOUN

Etymology

Calque of German Geisterbahnhöfe, originally describing stations in Berlin that were closed during the Cold War.

Meanings

1. A disused metro station that is passed through, but not stopped at, by passenger trains.
   • In Berlin, however, there is a handful of 'proper' ghost stations that can still be uncovered and observed, if not always visited. They constitute one of the German capital's lesser-known Cold War features, the so-called Geisterbahnhoffe^([sic]). […] Ghost stations (and platforms) appeared as a direct result of the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. […] With the collapse of the Wall and the reunification of Germany, the divided stations and railway lines of Berlin were 'reunited' too. The last 'ghost station' was reopened to all passengers in 1992, and the very term - "ghost station" - had come to denote any disused platform remaining from the divide. 2025 October 29, Vitali Vitaliev, “Haunted by the past”, in RAIL, number 1047, page 68:

Forms