{"id":49041,"date":"2022-10-22T23:25:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T21:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=49041"},"modified":"2025-10-24T02:06:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T00:06:35","slug":"a-tour-of-the-cincinnati-subway-an-entire-subway-network-abandoned-since-1928","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/10\/22\/a-tour-of-the-cincinnati-subway-an-entire-subway-network-abandoned-since-1928\/","title":{"rendered":"A tour of the Cincinnati Subway: an entire subway network abandoned since 1928"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In almost all the metro networks of large cities there are ghost stations that were abandoned for various reasons.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/07\/15\/the-beautiful-ghost-station-of-the-new-york-subway-that-was-designed-by-a-spaniard\/\">The beautiful ghost station of the New York Subway that was designed by a Spaniard<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/05\/24\/church-hill-a-railway-tunnel-in-which-two-men-and-a-train-are-buried\/\">Church Hill: A railway tunnel in which two men and a train are buried<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>In the city of Cincinnati (Ohio, USA), currently with about 300,000 inhabitants, they have something more surprising than an abandoned subway station. <strong>In 1910, this city had more than 360,000 inhabitants<\/strong> and was experiencing rapid growth (it reached half a million inhabitants in the 1950s). It was then that <strong>plans began to build an underground metro network that would have a total length of 36 kilometres<\/strong>. The idea excited the neighbors, the merchants and the media, and had a majority support in a popular vote held on April 17, 1917, a few days after the entry of the United States into the World War I.<\/p>\n<p>The Great War, as it was known then, altered the construction plans for this metro network. <strong>Costs skyrocketed, but despite the lack of funds, work on the metro began in January 1920.<\/strong> Other problems were added to the economic problems: the construction of the metro began to cause damage to the nearby buildings, creating cracks and giving rise to numerous lawsuits. <strong>In 1927, 11 kilometers of tunnels had already been dug, but the funds dried up.<\/strong> The local media, which had previously been favorable to the idea, turned against it. Finally, <strong>the subway was canceled in 1928<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In the following years it was even proposed to take advantage of the tunnels for car traffic, but the idea did not prosper. <strong>During World War II it was also proposed to use the subway as an anti-aircraft shelter<\/strong>, but the proposal was rejected. The construction was only used in the 1950s to pass a large water pipeline, and <strong>in 1960 a shelter for a possible nuclear war was installed at Liberty Station<\/strong>. There were also proposals to create an underground shopping center and even as a set for shooting movies, but without success. In recent years there have been some proposals to resume the construction of the metro, but none of them have prospered. So<strong>today, the Cincinnati Subway is the largest abandoned underground facility in the United States<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A group of US urban explorers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/TheProperPeople\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Proper People<\/a>, <strong>entered a few years ago in the tunnels of the Cincinnati Subway<\/strong> and recorded an interesting video showing its current state:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"America&#039;s Largest Abandoned Subway - Cincinnati Subway Explored!\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nY6A0_uxyvs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can see some screenshots of the video below. Here we see one of the tunnels of the old Cincinnati Subway.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446828733_36eeb1f990_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The old metro network was abandoned without the tracks being installed. No train ever ran through here.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446757865_971519d7ef_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Stairs to nowhere, which must have led to one of the stations.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446588814_500cb5e728_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the abandoned Cincinnati Subway stations.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446757785_4464e30cda_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The water pipe installed in the tunnels in the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52445857377_6b9aa4a707_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A fork in the old metro network.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446828848_287642f36d_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Abandoned beds in the old atomic shelter installed in Liberty Station.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52446588854_02915992f8_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In almost all the metro networks of large cities there are ghost stations that were abandoned for various reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16880,20878],"tags":[17695,17694,12914,10431],"class_list":["post-49041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infrastructures","category-trains","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-subway","tag-ohio","tag-united-states"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-12 05:25:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}