US’s quietest train station revealed – with only 247 passengers

A sparsely populated town in Texas is home to the least-used Amtrak train station in America, only receiving 247 passengers within a year.

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak, spans across 21,000 route miles in 46 states in the US, operating more than 300 trains a day.

While travelling by bus or car is often a popular way of traversing the vast American landscape, there are 500 destinations across the country that Amtrak connects.

However, some stations in remote areas are hardly used, struggling to even reach 300 passengers a year.

In Amtrak data analysed by MailOnline, it was revealed that Sanderson, an area in Terrell County, Texas, with a population of only around 700 people, received 247 passengers at its station in 2023.

Despite its low passenger use, the station got a $3m makeover in 2021, with a new open-air shelter, concrete platform and walkways to make the station more accessible.

The station is served six times a week, westbound and eastbound, by the long-distance Sunset Limited train that runs from New Orleans to San Antonio, then to Los Angeles for a 48-hour-long journey, as well as the 32-hour Texas Eagle, which departs from Chicago on its way to Los Angeles.

While only a small town, Sanderson has come to be known as the “Cactus Capital of Texas”, and is also an important livestock grazing center.

There has been a train stop at Sanderson since the 1880s, and despite its modern reconstruction over the years, the station is still without wifi or toilets.

Next on the list of the quietest stations is Montgomery, West Virginia, which only saw 266 passengers use the station in 2023 in this small community located next to the Kanawha River.

The station is served by the long-distance Cardinal train, which departs three days a week between New York and Chicago for a 26-and-a-half-hour journey.

Four stops down are Alderson, West Virginia, which the MailOnline’s data analysis has identified as the third least-used station in the US, with 399 passengers.

Fourth is Thurmond, West Virginia, which is only a stop away from Montogmery, serving only 466 passengers last year.

Changing states, the fifth-quietest station in the country can be found in Rensselaer, Indiana. While the town is much larger than the other stops on the list and close to Chicago in the neighbouring state, the station only received 509 passengers in 2023.

Only two stops away from Chicago, the station is also served by the Cardinal train.

These stations are a long way away from reaching the heights of the US busiest station,  Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station in New York, which received over 10.2 million passengers in 2023.

With 650,000 daily commuters, this Manhattan station has Amtrak trains passing through, as well as NJ Transit, Long Island Rail Road and the subway all stopping at this busy station.

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