Why "train station" and not "train stop"?

[WideRanger]

The use of the word "station" is the in same sense as in the armed forces. The RAF has stations, troops are stationed at a certain location etc. A railway station was a station on the railway where the company based people to conduct its business. Places where trains stopped which did not have staff were called halts.

Some other examples that illustrate earlier and still correct uses of the word station: Hill Station, Research Station, Stations of the Cross. In all cases, there is the sense of something significant or distant.

 

[PeterY]

It's a railway station. I refer to my local station (Hemel Hempstead) as Hemel station. "I'm going to Hemel station"

 

[Essan]

Surely the railway equivalent of a bus stop is a halt

 

[birchesgreen]

I prefer railway station myself but train station is also correct usage, people really shouldn't care, its not like you wouldn't know what people mean anyway.

 

[Indigo Soup]

Surely the railway equivalent of a bus stop is a halt

In principle yes, but since many stations have been downgraded to halts in all but name....

In fact, a bus station and a railway station (the staffed kind) are generally pretty comparable in passenger terms. It's just that bus networks don't need loads of them, whilst historically the railway network has done. Now that every lineside station doesn't need to handle goods and most trains can sell tickets on board, the need for station facilities is much reduced.

 

[M7R]

Can't we all agree that the correct term is 'Shack'?

Can we go with shack

So in theory the unmanned stops should be Halts if we are doing things properly?

 

[squizzler]

Might I suggest that if railways were just invented and a name was needed for the places to catch trains, we would call them railports, so as to provide consistency with seaports and airports?

 

[WideRanger]

Might I suggest that if railways were just invented and a name was needed for the places to catch trains, we would call them railports, so as to provide consistency with seaports and airports?

Only if it is a port (i.e. a place with either customs or immigration facilities)