It's time once again for the annual splurge of passenger data from across Britain's railway network, this batch covering the period April 2024 to March 2025.
Everything changed in 2022 when Crossrail opened, firing a purple bombshell that upended former norms and shook up the list of busiest stations. Any interchange between tube and Crossrail counts as entering or exiting a National Rail station so some mighty distortions are skewing the numbers.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations (2024/25)(with changes since 2023/24) 1) -- Liverpool Street (98m) 2) ↑2 Waterloo (70.4m) 3) ↓1 Paddington (69.9m) 4) ↓1 Tottenham Court Road (68m) 5) ↑2 London Bridge (55m) 6) -- Victoria (54m) 7) ↓2 Stratford (51m) 8) -- Farringdon (50m) 9) -- Bond Street (43m) 10) -- Euston (40m)
Six of the top 10 are Crossrail stations, the arrival of purple trains having displaced the usual trio of Waterloo, London Bridge and Victoria from the summit. Liverpool Street retains the crown it snatched in 2022, its complement of commuters boosted by through services on the Elizabeth line. With 98 million passengers it's massively ahead of the rest of the pack and I suspect will be the UK's busiest station every year for the foreseeable future.
Waterloo has rebounded to 2nd place but is only marginally ahead of Tottenham Court Road, which wasn't even a National Rail station until three years ago. London Bridge and Victoria also demonstrate the importance of commuting south of the river. Stratford, which enjoyed a chart-topping year during the pandemic, drops to seventh although that's still an impressive ranking for a station outside central London. Farringdon is boosted by being the sole link between Crossrail and Thameslink. Whitechapel, amazingly, lurks just outside the top 10 at 12th.
If you're wondering about other Crossrail stations in the listings the next busiest is Canary Wharf (25th), then come Ealing Broadway (27th), Reading (33rd), Woolwich (34th), Romford (38th), Abbey Wood (39th), Ilford (43rd) and Custom House (51st).
If you're interested in comparing London's rail termini, the ranking is Liverpool Street > Waterloo > Paddington > London Bridge > Victoria > Euston > St Pancras > King's Cross > Charing Cross > Blackfriars > Marylebone > Fenchurch Street > Moorgate > Cannon Street. All but Moorgate and Cannon Street are in the national Top 50.
The UK's ten busiest National Rail 'flows' (2024/25) 1) Tottenham Court Road ⇄ Liverpool St (8.7m) 2) Paddington ⇄ Tottenham Court Road (7.2m) 3) Bond Street ⇄ Tottenham Court Road (6.8m) 4) Liverpool Street ⇄ Stansted Airport (6.5m) 5) Paddington ⇄ Bond Street (5.6m) 6) Victoria ⇄ Gatwick Airport (5.5m) 7) Liverpool St ⇄ Stratford (5.2m) 8) West Ham ⇄ Barking (5.1m) 9) Farringdon ⇄ Liverpool St (5.1m) 10) Paddington ⇄ Farringdon (4.8m)
A recent innovation to the annual dataset, these are the most popular journeys on the UK rail network. Seven of the top 10 are on the Elizabeth line, sometimes just one stop, and the top three all involve travelling to/from Tottenham Court Road. Two airport connections are the only journeys that extend outside London. Perhaps the most unexpected inclusion is West Ham ⇄ Barking, most of which involves passengers changing to/from the Jubilee line.
The top three flows outside London are Birmingham New Street ⇄ Coventry (2.4m), Edinburgh Waverley ⇄ Glasgow Queen Street (2.4m) and Birmingham New Street ⇄ Wolverhampton (1.9m).
The UK's ten busiest National Rail stations outside London (2024/25) 1) -- Birmingham New Street (37m) 2) -- Manchester Piccadilly (27.4m) 3) ↑1 Leeds (27.3m) 4) ↓1 Glasgow Central (25m) 5) -- Edinburgh (23m) 6) -- Gatwick Airport (21m) 7) -- Brighton (15.3m) 8) -- Glasgow Queen Street (15.0m) 9) ↑1 Liverpool Central (14.8m) 10) ↑1 Liverpool Lime Street (14.4m)
Poor old Birmingham New Street had always been in the national top 10 but Crossrail has again nudged it out. It's now in 13th place overall, with Manchester Piccadilly 15th, Leeds 16th and Glasgow Central 17th. Some of these stations have very similar passenger numbers so don't read too much into this year's shuffles.
The next 10: Reading, Cardiff Central, Bristol Temple Meads, Cambridge, Newcastle, York, Sheffield, Stansted Airport, Manchester Victoria, Oxford
311 provincial stations served over a million passengers during 2024/25, thirty more than in the previous year. For comparison 226 London stations exceeded a million passengers. In surprising London/not-London comparisons, West Ham was busier than York, Seven Sisters was busier than Nottingham, Lewisham was busier than Leicester, Putney was busier than Preston, Norwood Junction was busier than Norwich and Purley was busier than Plymouth.
London's ten busiest National Rail stations that aren't central London termini or part of Crossrail (2024/25) 1) -- Clapham Junction (24.5m) 2) -- Highbury & Islington (24.0m) 3) -- East Croydon (21m) 4) -- Canada Water (19m) 5) -- Vauxhall (16m) 6) -- Barking (14m) 7) -- Wimbledon (13m) 8) ↑1 Finsbury Park (11.2m) 9) ↓1 West Ham (11.1m) 10) -- Richmond (10m)
Once you strip out central London termini and Crossrail a rather different picture appears and rankings are more stable. Half of the top 10 are Overground stations. All but two are also tube stations, where everyone changing to or from the tube technically counts as an entrance or exit even if passengers don't leave the station. Clapham Junction's total would almost double if the data included interchanges.
The next 10: Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters, Surbiton, Shoreditch High Street, Willesden Junction, Lewisham, Shepherd's Bush, Bromley South, Peckham Rye, Old Street
London's ten least busy Overground stations (2024/25) 1) -- Emerson Park (303,000) 2) -- South Hampstead (478,000) 3) -- Headstone Lane (517,000) 4) ↑1 Wandsworth Road (610,000) 5) ↑2 Penge West (635,000) 6) ↓2 South Kenton (643,000) 7) ↑2 Stamford Hill (676,100) 8) ↓2 Hatch End (696,000) 9) ↑1 South Acton (747,000) 10) ↓2 Kilburn High Road (758,000)
Emerson Park on the runty Romford-Upminster line remains at the bottom of the Overground heap by some distance. It's the only one of these ten stations whose passenger numbers have decreased. South Hampstead's total is particularly pitiful for a zone 2 station. South Kenton is also one of the tube's least used stations, and combining numbers from the two modes would knock it out of this list. Half of the ten least busy Overground stations are on the Lioness line.
The least busy station on each Overground line (2024/25) Liberty: Emerson Park (303,000) Lioness: South Hampstead (478,000) Windrush: Wandsworth Road (610,000) Weaver: Stamford Hill (676,100) Mildmay: South Acton (747,000) Suffragette: Crouch Hill (901,000)
A year after the Overground lines were given separate names, the Suffragette line has the busiest least used station.
London's ten least busy National Rail stations (2024/25) 1) -- Sudbury & Harrow Road (23000) 2) -- Drayton Green (23300) 3) -- South Greenford (52000) 4) -- Sudbury Hill Harrow (54000) 5) -- Morden South (76000) 7) ↑1 Coulsdon Town (98000) 6) ↓1 Birkbeck (105000) 8) -- Reedham (106000) 9) -- Castle Bar Park (113000) 10) -- Crews Hill (119000)
Sudbury & Harrow Road is once again London's least used station. This unloved halt sees a measly four trains in the morning peak and four in the evening peak, so most locals use the nearby Piccadilly line station instead. Drayton Green is very close behind, a station that's only a short walk from West Ealing where all trains terminate. South Greenford and Castle Bar Park are also on the little-used Greenford branch. Coulsdon Town and Reedham continue to suffer from a post-pandemic reduction in services on the Tattenham Corner line.
The next 20: South Merton, Woodmansterne, West Ruislip, Greenford, St Helier, South Ruislip, Northolt Park, Knockholt, Sundridge Park, Belmont, Bromley North, Ravensbourne, Sutton Common, West Sutton, Kenley, Wimbledon Chase, Riddlesdown, Emerson Park, Woolwich Dockyard, Haydons Road
And now outside London...
The National Rail stations with NO passengers in 2024/25 0) Stanlow and Thornton [three years running] 0) Teesside Airport [two years running] 0) Altnabreac
Stanlow & Thornton, an industrial halt in Cheshire, is entirely surrounded by the UK's second largest oil refinery. It used to get a few peak services but has been closed since February 2022 "due to safety concerns of the footbridge which is the only entry point to the station". Teesside Airport lost its weekly train in May 2022 after the westbound platform closed due to safety issues. Its eastbound platform had closed in 2017 after the footbridge was deemed unsafe, cutting the number of weekly trains from two to one. Technically both stations are only temporarily closed, but given their miserable passenger record it's hard to see anyone stumping up for repairs.
Altnabreac is an exceptionally remote station in the Scottish Highlands, about 20 miles from Wick and Thurso. Train services were suspended in November 2023 due to an access dispute with a neighbouring property. The new owners believed they owned the station platform, blocked the access road and decided that train drivers were honking at them offensively. The legal dispute lingers on, the offending couple having been summoned to Inverness Sheriff Court just last week. Rail services resumed on 6th April 2025, six days after the cut-off for this year's figures, so expect to see Altnabreac with a non-zero total next year.
Here are the true least used.
The UK's ten least busy National Rail stations (2024/25) 1) ↑8 Elton and Orston (68) 2) -- Shippea Hill (76) 3) -- Ince and Elton (98) 4) ↓3 Denton (100) 5) -- Reddish South (102) 6) ↓2 Polesworth (154) 7) -- Chapelton (160) 8) ↓2 Coombe Junction Halt (224) 9) ↑2 Scotscalder (226) 10) ↑3 Beasdale (230)
These are the stations that can't even muster five passengers a week, such is the inaccessibility of their location or the paucity of their service, Most have appeared in this Top 10 on many previous occasions. Elton & Orston was also 2021/22's least used station and is served by just two trains a day, one to Nottingham and one to Skegness. Shippea Hill in Cambridgeshire remains in the doldrums after a brief bump in visitors inspired by being a least used station. Ince and Elton is Stanlow and Thornton's underwhelmed neighbour.
Denton was last year's least used station but has managed to double its passenger total. Along with Reddish South on the Stockport-Stalybridge line it's served by only one train a week in each direction, currently on a Saturday morning. I visited both stations earlier this year, but on a Thursday so I don't count in the data but at least I can say I've been.
Polesworth on the West Coast Main Line gets one northbound train before 7am but no southbound trains. Chapelton is a request stop in the Taw Valley south of Barnstaple. Coombe Junction is a unpopulated reversing place between Liskeard and Looe. Scotscalder near Thurso is the least used station in Scotland, taking over from Kildonan. Beasdale is a once-private halt on the West Highland line. For aficionados of least used stations over the years these are all very familiar names.
The next 20: Ardwick, Buckenham, Pilning, Kildonan, Culrain, Duncraig, Invershin, Kinbrace, Rawcliffe, Lochluichart, Barry Links, Locheilside, Achanalt, Hensall, Portsmouth Arms, Roman Bridge, Lelant Saltings, Spooner Row, Thornton Abbey, Kirton Lindsey
Altogether 22 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a week and 117 stations failed to attract 10 passengers a day. But they all soldier on because closing a railway station remains a very tough legal wrangle, and better to have a little-used halt on your doorstep than no station at all.
