Railroad Apartment

A railroad apartment is an apartment with a series of rooms connecting to each other in a line. A hallway typically runs the length of the apartment or flat from the front door to the back door, outside each room. This is similar in design to a railway car. This usage is most common in New York City, San Francisco and their surrounding areas. Railroad apartments are common in brownstone apartment buildings.

Sometimes confused with a shotgun house, which is just a series of rooms connected directly, with no hallway, railroad apartments do typically have hallways. However, rooms may also connect directly, such as with panel doors that connect the living room to the dining room.

Railroad apartments first made an appearance in New York City in the mid-19th century, and were designed to provide a solution to urban overcrowding. Many early railroad apartments were extremely narrow, and most buildings were five or six stories high. Few early buildings had internal sanitation, and bathrooms emptied raw sewage into the back yard. In some cases, one family would take up residence in each room, with the hallway providing communal space.