An interchange station (in the UK, most Commonwealth countries, Hong Kong and Ireland) or a transfer station (in Canada and the USA) is a train station for more than one railway route in a public transport system, and allows passengers to change from one route to another.
Transfer may occur within the same mode, or between rail modes, or to buses (for stations with bus termini attached). Such stations usually have more platforms than single route stations. They may be required to pay extra fare for the interchange if they leave a paid area.
In most rapid transit, an interchange station is a stop at which a passenger can change from one line to another without incurring another full fare or having to leave the station proper.
Some interchange stations offer only transfer between routes and do not have the ability for passengers to enter or exit the network, for instance Cornbrook on the Manchester Metrolink light rail system (although passenger entrances and exits for the station were established in 2005). Manhattan Transfer (PRR station) on the Pennsylvania Railroad was located outside Newark, New Jersey.
Sometimes cross-platform interchange is offered between mainline railways and city metro systems, such as Barking station and Stratford station in London, England, United Kingdom, and Nam Cheong Station in New Kowloon, Hong Kong.
In some cases, no dedicated underground passage or footbridge is provided, and therefore passengers have to transfer between two parts of a station through city streets. Examples include Kuramae Station of Toei in Tokyo, Japan, Lexington Avenue / 59th Street and Lexington Avenue – 63rd Street stations in New York, New York, United States, and Xizhimen, Fuxingmen, Jianguomen and Dongzhimen stations in Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Famous quotes containing the words interchange and/or station:
“The press and politicians. A delicate relationship. Too close, and danger ensues. Too far apart and democracy itself cannot function without the essential exchange of information. Creative leaks, a discreet lunch, interchange in the Lobby, the art of the unattributable telephone call, late at night.”
—Howard Brenton (b. 1942)
“I introduced her to Elena, and in that life-quickening atmosphere of a big railway station where everything is something trembling on the brink of something else, thus to be clutched and cherished, the exchange of a few words was enough to enable two totally dissimilar women to start calling each other by their pet names the very next time they met.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)