There are few things more stressful than a jam-packed train station — slaloming through families, squeezing towards the platform and avoiding whacking your shins on suitcases, all while trying to catch your train on time. Now, the Office of Rail and Road has revealed which UK stations were the most crowded in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, all of Britain’s 10 busiest railway stations are in London, with London Liverpool Street in first place with a whopping 94.5 million passengers passing through in 2024. You can read about the rest of the top 10 here.
But what about the rest of the UK? Well, Liverpool Street’s footfall is almost triple that of the most popular non-London station. The busiest station outside of the capital in 2024 was Birmingham New Street, which saw 33.3 million people entering and exiting its platforms. That makes Brum’s station the most crowded for the second year in a row.
Manchester Piccadilly was bumped up from third to second busiest with 25.8m passengers passing through — 2.5m more than last year. Glasgow Central was hot on its heels with 25m, making it the busiest station in Scotland.
Wales’s busiest hub in 2024 was Cardiff Central with 11.5m, but that wasn’t enough for it to make the overall top 10. The ranking doesn’t include Northern Ireland, but that wouldn’t change the top 10.
At the other end of the extreme, the UK’s quietest rail station for 2024 was Denton in Greater Manchester, with a mere 54 entries and exits the entire year.
The UK’s busiest rail stations (outside of London)
- Birmingham New Street, 33.3m
- Manchester Piccadilly, 25.8m
- Glasgow Central, 25m
- Leeds, 24.9m
- Edinburgh Waverley, 21.3m
- Brighton, 14.5m
- Glasgow Queen Street, 14.5m
- Reading, 13.5m
- Liverpool Central, 12.6m
- Liverpool Lime Street, 12.3m
All aboard!
If you’re keen to curb the crowds, take note of the busiest (and quietest days) to travel by train for Christmas 2024. In other recent news from our railways, the UK’s first community-owned railway service will open in 2025, soon these two UK capital cities will be connected by train for the first time ever, this railway operator was ranked the best in Britain and you can have a first look inside the brand-new luxury Belmond sleeper train which will link up London, Cornwall, Wales and the Lake District in 2025.
ICYMI: Millions of visitors to the UK could soon be asked to pay a ‘tourist tax’.
Plus: Two British train routes are the best in the world, according to the Telegraph.
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