Ghost stations: the closed platforms between the stations you type

When you type your way from one station to the next, the train in the game moves straight on. On the real lines, some of those hops pass through a station that no longer opens its doors. These are the ones on lines you can ride in HelloSubway. None of them can be typed, but if you know where to look, a few can still be seen from the train.

London: three on the Piccadilly line, one on the Central

The Piccadilly line has three closed stations on the stretch the game uses. Down Street, between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park, closed on 21 May 1932. In the Second World War its platforms were bricked up and its passages turned into offices, meeting rooms and dormitories, and Winston Churchill and the war cabinet used it as a bunker. Churchill called it the Barn.

Brompton Road, between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, closed after the last train on 29 July 1934. In the war it became the Royal Artillery's anti-aircraft operations room for central London, and later a headquarters for university air and naval units. York Road, between King's Cross St Pancras and Caledonian Road, closed on 19 September 1932. Its surface building still stands on York Way, and when the boards covering the front were removed in 1989 the original lettering could be read again.

On the Central line, British Museum station stood between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn. It opened with the Central London Railway in 1900. When Holborn, about 100 metres away, got its own Central line platforms, British Museum closed on 24 September 1933, and the new platforms opened the next day.

New York: lost to longer trains

Most of New York's closed stations closed because trains got longer. When the platforms at a busy station were extended, a small station a few blocks away became pointless. On the 6 train, 18th Street sat between 14th Street-Union Square and 23rd Street. It opened with the first subway on 27 October 1904 and closed on 8 November 1948. Worth Street, between Canal Street and Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall, closed on 1 September 1962 after the Brooklyn Bridge platforms were extended.

The most famous is City Hall, on a curved loop south of Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall. It closed on 31 December 1945: its platform was short, few people used it, and the busier Brooklyn Bridge station was next door. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On the 1 train, 91st Street opened in 1904 and closed on 2 February 1959, after the platforms at 96th Street were lengthened. It sits between 86th Street and 96th Street.

Paris: the stations that never came back after 1939

When France went to war in September 1939, the Métro closed many of its stations. Most reopened. Four on the lines in the game are still closed to passengers today. Arsenal is on Line 5, between Bastille and Quai de la Rapée. Champ de Mars, on Line 8, opened in 1913 and was judged too lightly used and too close to La Motte-Picquet - Grenelle to come back. Croix-Rouge, between Sèvres-Babylone and Mabillon on Line 10, was the line's first terminus in 1923. Saint-Martin lies less than 100 metres from Strasbourg - Saint-Denis.

Tokyo: eight months at Shimbashi

Tokyo's best known ghost is on the Ginza Line. Two companies built the line from opposite ends. In January 1939 the Tokyo Rapid Railway, coming from Shibuya, opened its own station at Shimbashi next to the older company's. After about eight months the two lines were joined so that trains could run through, and the second Shimbashi platform closed. It is still there, sealed behind the station in use today. In Japanese such places are called maboroshi no eki, phantom stations.

If you ride these lines in the game, the gaps where these stations stood are among the hops you type. The shortest and longest gaps between stations shows how far apart the stations that survived are.