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The UK’s busiest train stations revealed

Simon Calder’s Travel

The busiest railway station in the UK has been revealed, knocking London Waterloo off the top spot, according to data from the Office for Rail and Road.

London Liverpool Street saw 80.4 million entries and exits between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, 22.6 million more than Waterloo, and 21 million more than London Paddington which took second place.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said the opening of the extremely popular Elizabeth line was the main contributing factor, increasing the number of entries and exits by more than 50 million in a year.

The new Elizabeth line, which runs from beyond the western and eastern edges of the capital, has also impacted the figures for Paddington, Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road which all feature in the top-10 stations.

Paddington was the second busiest station, up four places from last year, with 59.2 million entries and exits, while Farringdon has risen 29 places to number nine (31.5m). 

Tottenham Court Road’s Elizabeth line station opened in May 2022 and enters the list for the first time as the seventh busiest station with 34.9 million entries and exits. London Waterloo dropped down to third (57.8m), while London Bridge is fourth (47.7m).

The busiest stations outside London were Birmingham New Street (30.7m), Leeds (24.0m) and Manchester Piccadilly (23.6m), ranking 11th to 13th overall.

Glasgow Central was the most used station in Scotland with 20.8m entries and exits and Cardiff Central topped the list in Wales (10.2m).

The least used station was Teesside Airport which had two entries and exits in the latest year, however its once-a-week Sunday service was suspended in May 2022 after the platform was classified as unsafe.

The least used station that was open throughout the whole year was Denton in Greater Manchester with 34 recorded entries and exits. Third-place Elton and Orston in Nottinghamshire was the least visited in the previous year with 40 entries and exits; that number increased by 16 this time round.

Feras Alshaker, Director of Planning and Performance at the Office of Rail and Road, said: “Our official statistics released today show how the full opening of the Elizabeth line has changed the way people travel into and across the capital. Waterloo had been the busiest station in Britain for all but one of the previous 18 years. The busiest stations outside of London remain…

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