diff --git a/src/training/tesstrain_utils.sh b/src/training/tesstrain_utils.sh
index 11e239be9f..8a3ac2ca58 100644
--- a/src/training/tesstrain_utils.sh
+++ b/src/training/tesstrain_utils.sh
@@ -554,10 +554,6 @@ phase_B_generate_ambiguities() {
 make__lstmdata() {
   tlog "\n=== Constructing LSTM training data ==="
   local lang_prefix="${LANGDATA_ROOT}/${LANG_CODE}/${LANG_CODE}"
-  if [[ ! -d "${OUTPUT_DIR}" ]]; then
-      tlog "Creating new directory ${OUTPUT_DIR}"
-      mkdir -p "${OUTPUT_DIR}"
-  fi
   local lang_is_rtl=""
   if [[ "${LANG_IS_RTL}" == "1" ]]; then
     lang_is_rtl="--lang_is_rtl"
@@ -618,10 +614,6 @@ make__traineddata() {
   run_command combine_tessdata ${TRAINING_DIR}/${LANG_CODE}.
 
   # Copy it to the output dir, overwriting only if allowed by the cmdline flag.
-  if [[ ! -d ${OUTPUT_DIR} ]]; then
-      tlog "Creating new directory ${OUTPUT_DIR}"
-      mkdir -p ${OUTPUT_DIR}
-  fi
   local destfile=${OUTPUT_DIR}/${LANG_CODE}.traineddata;
   if [[ -f ${destfile} ]] && ! $OVERWRITE; then
       err_exit "File ${destfile} exists and no --overwrite specified";