A few months ago, I had a weird thought cross my mind: how many stations on the SkyTrain network are shared with other railways in the world?

I had two rules in mind for figuring this out: the stations must be active as in not under construction or closed (although I bent the rule on one station for good reason) and it must be named as “X station”.

This meant that “Production Way-University” would not mean I would look for stations named “Production Way” or “University” (the latter would definitely have many hits). It also meant that Lansdowne Station would have to have a name pair matching that name and not say “Lansdowne Road Station” or the like.

With these rules in mind, I did some cursory searches on Wikipedia to see what I could find. I am certain that I missed a few as I went along and it might be worth talking about any connections between the two places should something interesting come up in the future.

Aberdeen

You can find pairs for this station in the following:

• Aberdeen, Maryland
• Aberdeen, Scotland
• New South Wales, Australia

The one in Scotland should be no surprise really.

Bridgeport

This is also an Amtrak and Metro North railway station serving Bridgeport, Connecticut. It’s also a station I’ve passed through.

Edmonds

This station probably has the second closest name pair as it’s located in Seattle. You can with work get from either of the pair to each other with just a single transfer.

It’s also another station I’ve passed through.

Gateway

St. Louis in Missouri, Portland in Oregon, and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania each have their own Gateway station.

Gilmore

Shared with Line 2 on the Manila Light Rail Transit (LRT) in the Philippines.

Granville

This station shares its name with the CTA in Chicago and railway stations in Manche in France, Birmingham in the UK, and Sydney in Australia.

Lansdowne

We can find Lansdowne in the following places:

• Boston, Massachusetts
• Lansdowne, Pennsylvania
• Toronto, Ontario

This is the only situation where a station on the SkyTrain network has its name shared with another metro in Canada. I’ve used the Toronto and Boston stops and are the only pairs in this list I’ve been to.

Lincoln

Opened 168 years earlier in Lincoln, UK.

Nanaimo

Here’s my good reason: until 2011, the Expo Line and Vancouver Island’s City of Nanaimo had a station name pair. In the case of the city, this was a Via Rail station which once connected to the capital, Victoria.

Efforts have been made to revive rail service on the island since the service’s closure, but the provincial government has yet to give it serious consideration.

Royal Oak

Royal Oak shares its name with the one on the London Underground and an Amtrak station named Royal Oak in Michigan.

I have passed by it while on a train to Paddington which is a stop away.

Waterfront

This station shares its name with one on Washington DC’s Green Line metro. Until 2011, it was known as Waterfront-SEU.