Major cities with train services not all converging at one central station

[NCT]

Other than obvious examples like London and Paris

Prague - long-distance services use Hlavni Ndrazi and suburban services mainly use Masarykovo Ndrazi. Changing from a suburban service to a long-distance service often means walking between the two.

Milan - S lines mainly use Porto Garibaldi and long-distance services are concentrated at Centrale. If you live on an S line and want to travel long-distance, chances are you need make a Garibaldi - Centrale metro short hop.

Amsterdam - ICs from North Holland only go to Centraal and fastest ICs/ICDs from Rotterdam and The Hague go to Zuid. North Holland - Rotterdam / Breda journeys are often fastest via the Schiphol sprinter if you don't want your journey extended by half an hour. That said the Alkamaar - Haarlem IC and the Hoorn - Hoofdorp Sprinter make a lot of such journeys one change only.

Warsaw - long-distance trains use Centralna, SKM uses Srodmiescie to the east, and the WKD uses its own Srodmiscie. Though in this case the 3 stations are linked by passageways they are almost one complex.

Even Berlin - the North-South S-bahn does not serve Hauptbahnhof, and this will remain the case for the foreseeable, even with the S15.

The Birmingham New Street and Moor Street / Curzon Street, and and Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria duopolies are not unusual in a European context.

 

[StephenHunter]

Budapest has three main stations.

Moscow is another big case, with the stations named after the cities they historically served.

 

[Segedunum]

Bratislava Hlavna Stanica sees *most* services, but notable exceptions are trains bound for Prievidza (Nove-Mesto) and Vienna via Kittsee (Petržalka). Hegyeshalom-bound services stop at both.

 

[NCT]

Budapest has three main stations.

How can I forget.

Miskolc - Lake Balaton requires a cross-Budapest urban transfer.

 

[RT4038]

Buenos Aires, Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta, New York, Madrid spring to mind, with several others with a main station and subsidiary suburban(ish) train stations such as Rome, Naples, Bucharest, Vienna

 

[StephenHunter]

Munich would be another example, I believe.

 

[NCT]

Ah yes even Vienna, some S bahn lines don't go to Hauptbahnhof.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Feb 2026 ==

Munich would be another example, I believe.

Think it's only the S20 (which is an 'extra' anyway) that doesn't call at Hbf?

 

[RT4038]

Ah yes even Vienna, some S bahn lines don't go to Hauptbahnhof.

Some main line trains (Westbahn) go to Westbahnhof, and some regional and international services to Franz-Josefs Bahnhof.

 

[StephenHunter]

Ah yes even Vienna, some S bahn lines don't go to Hauptbahnhof.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Feb 2026 ==



Think it's only the S20 (which is an 'extra' anyway) that doesn't call at Hbf?

I believe that at least on Nightjet doesn't call there.

 

[NCT]

Some main line trains (Westbahn) go to Westbahnhof, and some regional and international services to Franz-Josefs Bahnhof.

Yes, though Westbahn doesn't serve any stations that don't have a 'core' Hbf service?

Which international services run out of Franz-Josefs? Are they regular hour daytime services?

 

[StephenHunter]

Some main line trains (Westbahn) go to Westbahnhof, and some regional and international services to Franz-Josefs Bahnhof.

Westbahnhof was the old main station for Vienna.

In the case of Berlin, the Hauptbahnhof replaced Lehrter. Berlin had several more main stations, but the war and the Wall put paid to some those.

 

[Segedunum]

Which international services run out of Franz-Josefs? Are they regular hour daytime services?

The "Silva Nortica" services from Vienna to Prague via Gmünd. Here's one example:

vagonWEB » Řazení vlaků » 2026 » ČD R » R 323 Silva Nortica

www.vagonweb.cz

Typically a couple each way per day.

 

[Gloster]

Dublin, Köln and Lille.

 

[Farang]

The Dublin public transport website says:
"There are three main stations in Central Dublin where you can catch long-distance, intercity trains. These are Connolly, Heuston and Pearse (with the majority of Intercity services running from Connolly and Heuston)."

 

[Bemined]

The Hague has two main stations that are just a kilometre apart: one terminus station and one through station on the main line. Some trains call at both but most of them call only at one of them.

 

[stadler]

Moscow and Saint Petersburg are two great example of this. They both have dozens of separate stations for both both long distance and suburban and regional trains. There is no main central station. Minsk is also another example but on a much smaller scale with two differerent stations in the centre for different services. Boston in the USA is another example.

 

[Amalie]

I would say that the French TGV sugarbeet stations sort of count here, such as Calais-Fréthun.

 

[D365]

Munich would be another example, I believe.

I believe that at least on Nightjet doesn't call there.

Munich is a tenuous suggestion at best. I can't imagine it's unusual for a European night train to bypass the 'Hauptbahnhof'.

 

[dutchflyer]

Whereas the general trend seems to be mainly to concentrate in one (Vienna, Berlin), here Bangkok/THailand got a few years ago a brand new white elefant for its longer distance express trains in the north of town-side by side with an existing stop on the older main line (Bang Sue), thus doing away with dozens of trains blocking all roadtraffic on the many crossings. Since then this new stop also got 2 suburban electric lines on a viaduct over the old lines, one of these serving the older airport Don Muang, now mostly a budget-air stop.
In the general planning this new station is mostly meant to serve the still under construction and recently damaged (a fallen crane on the tracks) normal gauge hi-speed line to link up to Laos-then China. That will likely take a few more years to come into real existence.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Feb 2026 ==

Munich is a tenuous suggestion at best. I can't imagine it's unusual for a European night train to bypass the 'Hauptbahnhof'.

No, not at all-the fate of those old style ´Kopfbahnhoefe´= end stations with no through service. Well-also cities like FRAnkfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig got a tunnel local stop beside that old station building for the local S-Bahn services.

 

[The exile]

Munich is a tenuous suggestion at best. I can't imagine it's unusual for a European night train to bypass the 'Hauptbahnhof'.

I suspect the only “service” that avoids the Hbf (as opposed to the odd individual train) is the (peak hours only?) S - Bahn service (S27?) that runs from Pasing to the Harras direction via the 3rd side of the triangle.
All slightly tenuous, but add Nuremberg, Hamburg and Lueneburg.

 

[Magdalia]

Does Lisbon still have three termini?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Does Lisbon still have three termini?

Yes (S Apolonia, Cais do Sodre and Rossio), but the new Oriente is a through station which connects to the loop line round to the Tagus bridge, with interchange to the Rossio line.
The metro also links the three termini.

Budapest seems to have reverted to using separate termini for long distance services instead of concentrating them at Keleti.
Nyugati is now used for services to Bratislava/Prague/Belgrade, and there is even a Vienna (Regiojet) service from Deli.

Some Dresden-Brno EC services now miss out Praha hl.n. and call at Holešovice instead "to avoid reversal", which I find odd as I'm sure there is a through route via hl.n.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Barcelona will soon have La Sagrera as well as Sants. ( I think all services that serve Franca also serve Sants).

 

[JRHurst]

Delhi: Old Delhi, New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin and Anand Vihar Terminal are the main four for terminating and through trains, but some bypass all these and stop elsewhere too.

 

[RailWonderer]

Stockholm has Central but also Östra which only the suburban Roslagsbanan uses. It's one of my favourite lines because it's a completely captive narrow guage line that has its own terminal and rolling stock. In 2028 the line will be extended to Central, thus removing Stockholm from this list of cities with multiple terminals.

 

[RT4038]

I would say that the French TGV sugarbeet stations sort of count here, such as Calais-Fréthun.

Not sure that Calais really fits the description of 'major city' in the thread title though.....

 

[beardedbrit]

Buenos Aires, Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta, New York, Madrid spring to mind, with several others with a main station and subsidiary suburban(ish) train stations such as Rome, Naples, Bucharest, Vienna

Boston (North and South Stations)

 

[signed]

Lyon has 3 stations that serve long-distance/regional trains

Lyon Part-Dieu the main one, Lyon Perrache serves mostly TGV avoiding Part-Dieu and Lyon Saint-Paul serves the regional tram-train network

Marseille has 2, Saint Charles and Blancarde with Blancarde used at least by the Nice ICN as Saint-Charles is a terminus and requires a reversal

Madrid has Chamartin and Puerta de Atocha

Basel has Basel SBB and Basel Bad Bf which is actually a DB station

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Lyon has 3 stations that serve long-distance/regional trains
Lyon Part-Dieu the main one, Lyon Perrache serves mostly TGV avoiding Part-Dieu and Lyon Saint-Paul serves the regional tram-train network
Marseille has 2, Saint Charles and Blancarde with Blancarde used at least by the Nice ICN as Saint-Charles is a terminus and requires a reversal
Madrid has Chamartin and Puerta de Atocha
Basel has Basel SBB and Basel Bad Bf which is actually a DB station

Lyon also has St Exupery on the avoiding line, serving the airport.
The two Madrid termini are linked by both local and long-distance tunnels.
There is also a 3rd terminus at Principe Pio (the former Norte terminus).

Vigo still has two termini - Guixar and Urzaiz.

 

[Falcon1200]

Nearly 40 years ago, on February 12th 1986 I was on the 1805 Naples-Stuttgart which stopped at Rome Tiburtina, not Termini; IIRC we walked between the two.