Train station named as one of least used in the UK

A tiny Cheshire railway station is the third least-used station in the country. Ince and Elton, located in the small village of Elton, saw just 86 passenger entries and exits between April 2023 and March 2024.

Just two other Great British stations saw fewer numbers, according to the latest statistics for the Office for Rail and Road, which analysed footfall in 2,581 stations. These were Shippea Hill railway station in the Burnt Fen area of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk at 74, and Denton in Manchester at a mere 54 - the equivalent of 6.8 passengers a week.

Meanwhile London Liverpool Street was named Great Britain’s busiest train station for the second year in a row. A total of 94.5 million passenger entries and exits were made from the station between April 2023 and March 2024.

London Paddington was the next busiest in the country with 66.9 million entries and exits, followed by Tottenham Court Road with 64.2 million, Waterloo, and Stratford London.

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Birmingham New Street was the busiest station outside of the capital with 33.3 million entries and exits, and Manchester Piccadilly was next with 25.8 million, followed by Glasgow Central and Leeds.

This is a far cry from the little-used Ince and Elton station, which sees just 12 trains pass through each week. The unstaffed station was opened in July 1863 by the Birkenhead Joint Railway, and was renamed Ince and Elton in 1884.

The line was commonly used to carry loads of heavy goods from the Birkenhead and Ellesmere Port docks, as well as operating a passenger service between Warrington and Chester.

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The station was earmarked for closure in the 1960s, along with a number of other small Cheshire stations - Stanlow and Thornton, Helsby and Ellesmere Port. It remained open, however services were gradually reduced.

Today, Ince and Elton receives just two trains per day in each direction between Ellesmere Port and Helsby, with one of these going onto Liverpool Lime Street. The station is not staffed, and has no services at all on Sundays.