Welcome to the Loneliest Transit Station in America
It’s Valentine’s Day and the 10:47 pm train from downtown carries more than just passengers – it carries dashed hopes and date night disapointments. As the train clears the city limits, your fellow travelers gradually filter out at their respective stations until you are the only one remaining. The conductor's voice crackles over the intercom, announcing your stop. You step onto an empty platform into the vast nothing of a February night. The parking lot stretches before you, a concrete slab, your car one of only three scattered across its expanse. Welcome to the loneliest transit station in America.
This scene could exist at hundreds of transit stations in the United States where plans for dense, walkable, lively places have not yet taken root or have been nipped in the bud. So many station areas are lonely, but which one is the loneliest? I undertook a virtual quest to find out. I researched station areas using the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas which provides land use maps of over 4,900 transit station areas in the United States. I also crowd sourced (pun intended) suggestions from New Urbanist Memes for Transit Oriented Teens (NUMTOT) a Facebook group dedicated to discussion, internet memes, pop culture references and general snark around urbanism and transit (or the lack thereof). Which station is the most isolated, desolate, windswept and soul sucking? Read on….
The Loneliest Station in the Washington DC Region
Let’s begin close to home. This post draws inspiration from a December 27, 2024 Washington Post Article: “Welcome to the Loneliest Metro Stop” which profiles the Loudoun Gateway station on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Silver Line. Author Joe Heim writes: “The only sounds are the steady hum of traffic zooming along the adjacent Dulles Greenway and an occasional whoosh of whipping wind. An announcement on the public address system presumably provides an important Metro update. It’s too garbled to tell.” The article describes how zoning prohibits residential units near the Loudoun Gateway station because of nearby airplane noise and how data centers are now more in demand then office space. The station’s location adjacent to the Dulles Expressway, an arterial road, and a WMATA rail yard also poses challenges for future development. NUMTOT member Nicole Singer nominated this station for the loneliest one. But even though the Loudoun station is averaging 317 riders a day (out of around 400,000 riders per day system-wide) it may not be the loneliest station in the United States. There are other, lonelier locations.
Left: Photo credit by Michael S. Williamson, the Washington Post. Right: image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas.
Amtrak Stations
Several NUMTOT members nominated Amtrak stations for the “loneliest station” award and with good reason. Unlike subway or commuter rail systems that run multiple trains per hour, many Amtrak routes—especially on the long-distance network—have only one or two trains per day in each direction. This means that for much of the day, these stations are completely empty, with no passengers, no trains, and often no staff. Some Amtrak stations are located far from town centers. Amtrak’s long-distance routes run day and night, meaning stations only see trains in the middle of the night. If you arrive at an Amtrak station in a remote town at 2 AM in winter, it might be pitch black, bitterly cold, and completely deserted except for a single waiting passenger or two.
This post focuses on public transportation instead of intercity rail, but the Lakefront station on Cleveland’s Blue and Green light rail lines may combine the worst of both worlds. It is marked “Amtrak station (on request)” on the system map and I suppose someone riding the rail during transit service hours of 5:00 am to 12:30 am could request to disembark at the station but they won’t be able to catch an Amtrak until it arrives later that night. The station serves four daily trains: the Floridian between Miami and Chicago, and the Lake Shore Limited between Chicago and New York City/Boston. As of November 2024, these trains were scheduled to arrive/depart from Cleveland at various times between 1:00 a.m. and 5:50 a.m. A traveler getting off at the Amtrak station may need to wait through the early morning near the appropriately named Lake Erie for the first GCRTA train to arrive.
Left: image from Greater Cleveland RTA System Map. Right: Image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
If You Build it, Will they Ride?
The St. Louis Metro light rail travels east from Forest Park through the vibrant West End and the Grand Central Arts District, past Union Station, across the Mississippi River and into Illinois. It continues past Belleville, a charming city with a historic Main Street full of shops and restaurants, and through areas that grow sparser and sparser before arriving at the Shiloh-Scott station flanked by an air force base on one side and fields of corn on the other. NUMTOT commentator Steven Green nominated Shiloh-Scott for the loneliest station in America.
Left: image from Wikimedia Commons. Right: image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
A corn field-adjacent station may feel pastoral in the summer, like something out of “Field of Dreams” but I’d imagine the station feels bleaker and more lonely when fields are fallow, as shown in this picture of the nearby College Station.
Left: Image from Google Earth. Right: image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
Desert Solitaire
In the vast expanse of the desert, loneliness takes on a physical form. It stretches across endless dunes like a shimmering veil, dancing with the heat waves that rise from sand turned to glass by the merciless sun.
OK, so Southern California’s Metrolink commuter rail doesn’t run through the Sahara, but there’s something about the Vincent Grade/Action station on the Soledad Canyon along the Antelope Valley Line that strikes me as especially melancholy. Perhaps is the nearby rugged hills and power lines. According to transit station documentarian Subway Nut: “The stop is located in a census designated place of Acton, with 7,596 residents in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County. Vincent Grade is the name of the pass trains use to rise up out of the canyon and into the Antelope Valley.”
Left: image from Wikipedia. Right: Image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
What makes this station quirky (and perhaps less lonely insofar as you are enjoying the exterior decorations) is the station’s “Old West” decor, a tribute to the valley’s location for Hollywood westerns. Subway Nut thinks the shelters look “totally hokey” but I find them charming. Maybe someone could add a sculpture of a tumbleweed.
Left and Right images from Subway Nut
Chicagoland Blues
Few places feel as desolate as a transit station in the dead of winter, especially those surrounded by industrial sprawl. A trip on the Metra commuter rail line in Suburban Chicago will take you to places like the 120th street station, next to rail yards, warehouses, and (in the case of the Zion station) a nuclear power plant. I imagine the usual bustle of commuters fades into an eerie quiet once rush hour ends. The surrounding landscapes are designed not for people but for the machinery of commerce. It’s not uncommon for transit stations, especially commuter rail lines, to share space with freight rail infrastructure. Waiting for a train in this environment some of us might ask ourselves a lonely question: do we really belong here?
All images from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
The Final Stop
Unlike the lively, pedestrian-friendly hubs often envisioned by urban planners, Pinelawn Station isn’t teeming with human life—quite the opposite in fact. Instead of coffee shops and office buildings, its surroundings are marked by rows of headstones and mausoleums, with the occasional funeral procession passing through. Here, the primary visitors are mourners rather than commuters, and the rhythm of daily life is more about remembrance than rush hour. Cemeteries within walking distance include Pinelawn Memorial Park, St. Charles and Resurrection, Beth Moses, and Wellwood Cemeteries. Not all lonely station areas are forgotten places – here, the loneliness is purposeful, even sacred, making it a transit stop where solitude feels not just appropriate, but necessary.
Left: image from Pinelawn.com. Right: image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
A Ghost Station
NUMTOT commentator 西村 ティモシー (which Claude AI translates to “Timothy Nashimura” wrote: “Haunting yet beautiful, awash in natural light. Yearns to connect, to feel, to be noticed by patrons once more. Lonely yet dignified, aging in place gracefully. The correct answer is the City Hall Station on the IRT/Lexington Line.”
I like where you’ve taken this prompt, Timothy! The City Hall Station is one of the most architecturally stunning unused subway stations in the world. It features an elegant curved platform following the tight loop track, gleaming brass fixtures, intricate leaded glass skylights, graceful arches with Guastavino tile vaulting, ornate glass and brass chandeliers, and decorative plaques and architectural details. The station opened in 1904 serving as the crown jewel and showpiece of New York's first subway system. It closed in 1945 because the curved platform created a dangerous gap with modern longer subway cars and the platform couldn't be lengthened to accommodate longer trains. These days, you can visit the station on tours held a few times a year or view it by taking the Number 6 Train to the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station (the last stop) and staying on the vehicle. As the train makes its turnaround loop to head uptown, it passes through City Hall Station.
These fleeting glimpses feel like an encounter with abandonment. The station is so close, yet so far away from lower Manhattan’s terranean bustle. It’s a relic of a lost era when public spaces were also beautiful spaces.
Left: image from OpenStreetMap. Right: image from NYCSubway.org
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Commuter
The Metro North Railroad (MNRR) which connects the City that Never Sleeps with sleepy settlements in the northern suburbs is a prime candidate for loneliest station nominations. Stops along the Harlem, Hudson, and Port Jervis line including the Wassaic, Brewster, Tenmile River and Appalachian Trail stations received NUMTOT nominations. These stations are located adjacent to a commuter parking lot and not much else.
NUMTOT member Ali Church makes a case for the Salisbury Mills Cornwall station on the MNRR Port Jervis line with her post: “Please hold a spot for Salisbury Mills Cornwall. Farm fields (check), low density spawl (check), four acre zoning (check), 60 minutes to NYC (check), a community that will do anything to keep their ‘quality of life’ (check).”
Left: image from Subway Nut. Right: Image from the National Transit Station Gazetteer and Atlas
Subway Nut has more details on this station and you can take a video tour of the area provided by Bill King. The station area itself looks pleasant enough: the waiting area was modernized between 2004 and 2007 and for all I know the 677 space parking lot is full of cars and the platform is packed with people during the morning and evening rush hours.
When it comes to transit stations, urban planners talk about the tension between “node” and “place.” Ideally, there is a healthy, long-term relationship between the two, where transit station areas serve as both nodes for efficient travel and attractive places to live and work in their own right. Stations like Salisbury Mills Cornwall and many other commuter rail stations across the United States are almost entirely nodes. They may also represent missed opportunities for place-making. Post-pandemic work from home has increased. Do these stations now need as much parking as they have (did they ever need this much parking?) Could some car storage be re-patriated for housing or commercial development to provide the transit agencies with revenue that might help compensate from reduced work trips? I see potential to travel from lonely to lively over time.
Salisbury Mills Cornwall station stands as a compelling candidate for America's loneliest transit station, embodying a particular type of transit isolation that feels uniquely American. While other stations may see fewer daily riders or sit in more remote locations, the profound loneliness of Salisbury Mills Cornwall lies in its contradiction: the vast parking lot, the restrictive zoning, and the deliberate preservation of low density all serve to keep the station at arm's length from the community it supposedly serves. This isn't just geographic isolation, but designed isolation - a testament to how American suburban development has often prioritized perceived 'quality of life' over the vibrant possibilities that transit-oriented communities can offer. Salisbury Mills Cornwall reflects choices made and opportunities still waiting to be embraced.
Salisbury Mills Cornwall: for representing an American archtype and embodying the ache between what is and what could be, you win the title of the Loneliest Transit Station in America. Congratulations and happy Valentine’s day to NUMTOT winner Ali Church!
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Feel free to disagree or propose your own candidates by sending me an email to connect@transitdiscoveries. Don’t be a stranger now.
