A tiny train station has been named the least used in Britain in the industry’s latest round of statistics. It features no staff or services at all – tickets are bought on board from a guard at no extra cost.
The Nottinghamshire station of Elton and Orston was used by just 40 people during the 2021/22 period and is just one stop down the line from Leicestershire’s least used station, Bottesford.
For those hoping to make a trip into the big city of Nottingham, there is just one service per day – at 7.04am. There is also a train to Skegness, at 5.12pm, which takes just under two hours, stopping at Grantham and Boston, among others.
The station was actually opened in 1850 – on the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern Junction railway. Unfortunately for locals, it is now a shadow of its former life.
The station serves Elton on the Hill, a small south-east Nottinghamshire village whose local MP is the high-performing Robert Jenrick, Minister for Immigration. The village’s population is only about 75, and there are no schools – the most notable feature being its pub, the Manor Arms.
According to NottinghamshireLive, in 2019 the station had 68 passengers visit – this figure goes up to March 2020, when the first lockdown was announced.
And its measily footfall is reflected in what’s on offer at the station. Along with no staff, there’s no means of grabbing a coffee or a cold drink – even from a vending machine.
Hungry or thirsty commuters will have to get on one of the few services that depart from the station to get a bite to eat at the next stop.
The 2021/22 train station statistics threw up some other surprise results too. The least visited station in the country was Heathrow Terminal 4 – although this was because it was closed due to the Covid pandemic.
In the year before the pandemic, Berney Arms in Norfolk was the lowest on the list, with just 42 users, while in the 2018/19 period, there was a tantalisingly close draw between Stanlow and Thornton in Cheshire and Denton from Greater Manchester, each with 46 passengers.
On the other side, eight of the top ten most used train stations from the 2021/22 period were from London – with Waterloo topping the list. Birmingham New Street was in eighth place – the first outside the capital – thanks to its central location connecting London to the North West.
