Least Used Stations 2019-20

[Mat17]

Probably a popular destination by dodgers buying to/from the first station in order to bypass the barriers at Piccadilly

Ah touché, I hadn't thought of that!

 

[Journeyman]

Breich got an hourly service, so its passengers usage went up to 2,550.

I'm still quite surprised, considering that buses are more convenient for most local people. The village is tiny and some distance from the station.

Not entirely sure it justifies the money spent on the rebuild, but it's good to see.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Always surprised to see Ardwick not in the top ten.

Probably a popular destination by dodgers buying to/from the first station in order to bypass the barriers at Piccadilly

Ah touché, I hadn't thought of that!

Would anyone really be so dumb as to claim to have travelled in from Ardwick at the Piccadilly ticket barriers. Other than the two morning peak services, there aren't any other trains that call inbound there during the rest of the day.

 

[Kite159]

Would anyone really be so dumb as to claim to have travelled in from Ardwick at the Piccadilly ticket barriers. Other than the two morning peak services, there aren't any other trains that call inbound there during the rest of the day.

Wouldn't be surprised if someone has been dumb enough to try it.

 

[Ianno87]

Wouldn't be surprised if someone has been dumb enough to try it.

The sort of people who would try it probably don't even realise there's a station at Ardwick, as their train never stops there...

 

[Djgr]

Gosh, the cinderella station of Moorfields above Birmingham Moor Street, Woking and nearly St. Albans City.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I'm intrigued by some of the reasons
Greenford -"

The addition of estimates for journeys to/from Heathrow stations this year accounts for around 4k additional entries and exits at this station."

Millbrook (Hants)

"Closures in 2020 on part of Marston Vale line due to issues with level crossings"

Falmouth Docks

"December 2019 timetable improved long distance journey times"

Kirton Lindsey and Brigg

"May 2019 timetable change introduced hourly service between Sheffield and Gainsborough Central."

 

[bluenoxid]

Worcestershire Parkway

11,798 people used it in the seven days from opening to end of Feb
13,680 people used it in March
63,915 people used it for interchanges between 23 Feb and 31 March, which is 2.5x the number of entries and exits.

Can anyone local give a perspective of these figures off their own personal experience. We are talking nearly 1,700 people per day interchanging at this brand new station.

 

[pj13]

new video for Geoff Marshall

 

[Kite159]

I'm intrigued by some of the reasons
Greenford -"

The addition of estimates for journeys to/from Heathrow stations this year accounts for around 4k additional entries and exits at this station."

Millbrook (Hants)

"Closures in 2020 on part of Marston Vale line due to issues with level crossings"

Falmouth Docks

"December 2019 timetable improved long distance journey times"

Kirton Lindsey and Brigg

"May 2019 timetable change introduced hourly service between Sheffield and Gainsborough Central."

Greenford makes sense, potential of some customers travelling to Heathrow with a change at West Ealing

I suspect they mixed up the Millbrook stations and the reason for the drop is the strike action in December

Didn't the Cornish Main Line increase to half hourly during the period, more people making connections at Truro to head to Falmouth?

No idea for Kirton & Brigg, if an increase most likely down to strike recovery (as those stations went unserved in the last period due to the strike about who gets to press the door opening button)

 

[TC60054]

No idea for Kirton & Brigg, if an increase most likely down to strike recovery (as those stations went unserved in the last period due to the strike about who gets to press the door opening button)

I suspect whoever has done it has noted the hourly Sheffield - Gainsborough service, known that Kirton & Brigg are on the same line and thought that the hourly service also serves those to justify the increase which as you say is far more likely going to be down to the reintroduction of services following the strikes.

 

[Llandudno]

Gosh, the cinderella station of Moorfields above Birmingham Moor Street, Woking and nearly St. Albans City.

Moorfields has 38 trains per hour calling at it from 0700-1900

 

[Djgr]

Moorfields has 38 trains per hour calling at it from 0700-1900

And yet one of its two entrances is still locked up at 7pm!

 

[YorksLad12]

This is something I do every year to keep my various IT skills up to date. There are a few formatting errors (any Scottish station and any with an & in the name, for example) because of the way the text is encoded, but it broadly does what I created it for. Trouble is, I only look at it once a year and thus never fix my errors

GB railway stations &amp patronage data

 

[Merle Haggard]

This is something I do every year to keep my various IT skills up to date. There are a few formatting errors (any Scottish station and any with an & in the name, for example) because of the way the text is encoded, but it broadly does what I created it for. Trouble is, I only look at it once a year and thus never fix my errors

GB railway stations &amp patronage data

That's really useful, thank you, much easier to use than the official one.

What it also shows, very dramatically (once expanded!) is how un-even the distribution of railway stations is. There are areas all over the country with few or no stations, and others where there are many close together. Obviously, this is a result of all the events from the Railway Mania to Beeching, and topography and population were obviously also important factors; but it does clearly show how random the likelihood of population being near to a railhead is now.

 

[Requeststop]

It will be very interesting to see the numbers for next full year now that Lelant Saltings only gets one service each way per day.

 

[Kite159]

It will be very interesting to see the numbers for next full year now that Lelant Saltings only gets one service each way per day.

I would put 10p on Saltings being in the top ten for the next period, considering it has lost its main purpose of being the P&R car park.

 

[ALEMASTER]

When looking at the statistics from March 2019 to February 2020, Deansgate got a huge increase from 456,140 to 1,323,150 with the reason for this being a methodological change which caused such a large change.

Does anyone know what the methodoligical change would be? It just mentions count splits in the spreadsheet?

Is it also possible that there may have been a large passenger increase at Deansgate station anyway?

I've also noticed a remark for South Yorkshire stations about a change of methodology in that some ticket types that were previously excluded have been included this year. It doesn't say what tickets but I'm assuming it is the South Yorkshire Travelmaster ticket range that includes all buses, trams and trains in the county.

 

[clagmonster]

Would anyone really be so dumb as to claim to have travelled in from Ardwick at the Piccadilly ticket barriers. Other than the two morning peak services, there aren't any other trains that call inbound there during the rest of the day.

I would imagine that anybody doing this would already have the ticket, rather than making the claim when paying at the excess fares desks. Don't really want to say more than that but even as a lay person I am aware of ways in which the revenue if they are so inclined could easily pull said people.

That said, I think there is some inward commuting to Ardwick. It is a fairly industrial area.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I'm astonished to see Stratford now in the top ten stations for entries and exits. (For those unfamiliar with the station, it is possible to change there from National Rail to London Underground without going through ticket barriers which is not the case at London's termini) That more people go through the barriers at Stratford than at Kings Cross is startling. I've long been aware that Stratford is an intensely busy interchange station but I didn't realise it had so many entries and exits.

 

[Ianno87]

I'm astonished to see Stratford now in the top ten stations for entries and exits. (For those unfamiliar with the station, it is possible to change there from National Rail to London Underground without going through ticket barriers which is not the case at London's termini) That more people go through the barriers at Stratford than at Kings Cross is startling. I've long been aware that Stratford is an intensely busy interchange station but I didn't realise it had so many entries and exits.

The demand to/from Westfield is quite astonishing these days.

 

[earthmover]

This is something I do every year to keep my various IT skills up to date. There are a few formatting errors (any Scottish station and any with an & in the name, for example) because of the way the text is encoded, but it broadly does what I created it for. Trouble is, I only look at it once a year and thus never fix my errors

GB railway stations &amp patronage data

Lot of work put in, much appreciated, good details. One issue I do have with a lot of modern web mapping is that often even the passenger rail network is not shown. In this case it appears if you zoom in, but often gets lost in large populated areas. Great work on showing train operator, links and historic data. The mapping is also a great help to understand the data in the rail usage stats, relating to geography, and land use, and proximity of other stations. Good point by Merle Haggard.

 

[YorksLad12]

That's really useful, thank you, much easier to use than the official one.

What it also shows, very dramatically (once expanded!) is how un-even the distribution of railway stations is. There are areas all over the country with few or no stations, and others where there are many close together. Obviously, this is a result of all the events from the Railway Mania to Beeching, and topography and population were obviously also important factors; but it does clearly show how random the likelihood of population being near to a railhead is now.

Lot of work put in, much appreciated, good details. One issue I do have with a lot of modern web mapping is that often even the passenger rail network is not shown. In this case it appears if you zoom in, but often gets lost in large populated areas. Great work on showing train operator, links and historic data. The mapping is also a great help to understand the data in the rail usage stats, relating to geography, and land use, and proximity of other stations. Good point by Merle Haggard.

Thanks both for your kind words. It should be noted that the 'official' map is searchable and sortable, whereas mine is "just" a one-off run of a database to create a file to overlay onto a map. I try and extend it each time; this year got an extra field for the ceremonial county and a calculation for the ranking compared to last year. Next year I might add a line for the Regions or operator to say "busiest station in Yorkshire & the Humber" or "busiest station managed by Northern". I really ought to clean up the markers.

My Closed Stations in Yorkshire map (which needs fixing) shows how many stations were closed, and how many of the gaps in the current network used to have lines, such as from Harrogate to Ripon and Northallerton, and across the Dales.

Apple Maps used to show rail stations but not label them as such, which is confusing. It's interesting to see as well how the official and Google versions of where they think the pin for the station should be differ. Some use entrances or concourses, some use the centre point.

 

[DanBlanchflowe]

This is something I do every year to keep my various IT skills up to date. There are a few formatting errors (any Scottish station and any with an & in the name, for example) because of the way the text is encoded, but it broadly does what I created it for. Trouble is, I only look at it once a year and thus never fix my errors

GB railway stations &amp patronage data

Thank You. As a map its really easy to use.
Also to see if patronage in suburburn stations of big cities/urban areas is increasing as a more frequent service is provided, & new ones added.
So my station Dunston:
2013-14 2,336 when offering 2 trains a day each way
This increased to 17 a day approx each way in 2015.
So 2019-20 patronage is 19,698.
Much further potential as 8,000 approx live within 15 mins walk.

 

[jimm]

Worcestershire Parkway

11,798 people used it in the seven days from opening to end of Feb
13,680 people used it in March
63,915 people used it for interchanges between 23 Feb and 31 March, which is 2.5x the number of entries and exits.

Can anyone local give a perspective of these figures off their own personal experience. We are talking nearly 1,700 people per day interchanging at this brand new station.

I wouldn't set too much store by that figure for interchanges*, though the entries and exits figure bears out local observations of the number of cars that were being parked there on weekdays in the few weeks before lockdown No 1 began - 100+ pretty much from the off.

*Worcester has always been a black hole when it comes to the figures within these reports - the way the allocation of 'Worcester stations' tickets across Foregate and Shrub Hill is done changes on an almost annual basis, with footnotes on the spreadsheet that give little explanation, just say they have changed the calculation method (yet again).

Matters are not helped by there not being any barriers at either central station and the short journey times from and back to several ungated stations around the county, which mean train managers stand little chance of getting through trains to check or sell tickets. Barriers are proposed for Foregate Street, but if Shrub Hill is left ungated, it doesn't take much imagination to guess what will happen when it comes to people who don't mind the extra walk to and from the heart of the city centre if it saves them the price of a ticket.

 

[Whistler40145]

Is there a specific criteria a station has to fall under before being considered for possible closure?

 

[Merle Haggard]

I found Wellingborough interesting; only a slight (3%) increase over the last ten years, with the suggestion of recent decline.
In the future, it will be interesting to see the effect of electrification, which means changing for any Northbound journey at Kettering & slightly slower southbound. We'll be able to see the 'Sparks Effect' - usually, this is claimed for newly electrified services when, usually, the immediately-prior service had been reduced from the normal because of the engineering work to carry out electrification, enhancing the effect. This has not happened to any great extent on this part of the MML.

 

[Trainfan2019]

Is there a specific criteria a station has to fall under before being considered for possible closure?

I would imagine a mixture of some/all of the following:

Constantly low/continually decreasing passenger numbers, structural defects, surrounding land changing e.g large industries closing, station not being served so to speed up long distance routes.

 

[Djgr]

Is there a specific criteria a station has to fall under before being considered for possible closure?

No. And 999 times out of 1,000 it is not worth the legal hassle of going down that route.

 

[Ianno87]

Is there a specific criteria a station has to fall under before being considered for possible closure?

I found Wellingborough interesting; only a slight (3%) increase over the last ten years, with the suggestion of recent decline.
In the future, it will be interesting to see the effect of electrification, which means changing for any Northbound journey at Kettering & slightly slower southbound. We'll be able to see the 'Sparks Effect' - usually, this is claimed for newly electrified services when, usually, the immediately-prior service had been reduced from the normal because of the engineering work to carry out electrification, enhancing the effect. This has not happened to any great extent on this part of the MML.

Wonder how Wellingborough's usage will respond to empty 8-car EMUs tirning up from Corby, rather than 1tph being filled with longer distance passengers.

No. And 999 times out of 1,000 it is not worth the legal hassle of going down that route.

Just thinking of the stations formally closed in the last decade or so:

-Abercynon, Rochester and Angel Road (due to relocation or very close replacement stations)
-Oldham Loop stations (conversion to Metrolink)
-Norton Bridge (quiet station not served for years and eventually demolished for remodelling works)
-Etruria (quiet station closed to allow track realignment)

And then the mothballed stations of Redcar British Steel and IBM - basically the thing they exclusively served no longer operates.


So in summary, a closure is only done of a quiet station where there is benefit to making the "hassle" worth it. Otherwise it may as well just carry on with a 'token' service.