A Bolton train station no longer the 'UK's worst' (despite getting 'worse')

A Bolton train station no longer has the title of the UK’s ‘worst’ after climbing three places in the rankings.

Kearsley train station is now placed as the 2,626th best in the country for cancellations and delays in the last four weeks, making it the nation’s third worst, according to Ontimetrains.

The Bolton News revealed in May that 81 per cent of Kearsley’s services had been cancelled or delayed in the four weeks prior.

However, despite the shift from ‘worst’ to ‘third worst’, as of July 4, an increased 85 per cent of the station’s services fail to arrive on time.

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Barrhill, the station which displaced Kearsley to get the dreaded title, has a relatively better rate of only 83 per cent of trains not arriving on time.

The Scottish station still manages to rank worse than Kearsley as 22 per cent of its delays are more than 10 minutes, compared to the Bolton station’s figure of six per cent.

Cllr Tracey Wilkinson, from the party, Farnworth & Kearsley First, said: “The people of Kearsley have been going on about this for so long.

“I’m calling for Northern Rail and the council to deal with it, people in Kearsley would be happy with one service an hour at this point, but they can’t even get that, so something needs to be done about it.”

As of July 4, half of the ‘worst ten' UK train stations fall inside the Borough of Bolton, with Moses Gate, Farnworth, Westhoughton, and Blackrod joining Kearsley on the list.

Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, has reportedly been informed of the area's rail woes.

Mr Burnham is seeking to integrate local rail services into the authority's Bee Network by 2028.

But it remains unclear as to what extent Bolton's rail services will be integrated into the network.

Bolton Council's executive member for transport, housing and highways, Cllr Hamid Khurram believes the area's rail network would benefit from more "local management" of its stations.

He added: "It will probably come as no surprise to passengers that some of our railway stations are among the worst in the UK.

"With local stopping services frequently delayed or cancelled commuters are justifiably frustrated.

"The bad rail service is combined with poor facilities too.

"Some stations have no real-time information to update travellers on where their train is and there are still those which are not fully accessible for disabled people.

"We've worked hard to get improvements like the step-free access at Daisy Hill and the new digital signs at Moses Gate, but we would be able to do things like these quicker with local management of our stations.

"Introducing simplified tap-in-tap-out payments, integrated with the Bee Network will make rail travel easier and more attractive too."

A Northern Rail spokesperson said: "Our performance and reliability for customers in Bolton have not been up to scratch in recent weeks and for that we have apologised.

"Our operational colleagues are working hard to keep journey planners up to date, but customers should check closer to the time of travel.

"We are very actively managing higher levels of staff sickness, and on Sundays, which rely on crews volunteering to work additional hours, we have seen a reduction in train crew making themselves available on parts of the network.

"In addition, the ongoing industrial relations issues have their own impact. We are working hard with our colleagues and other train operators to improve service reliability.”