Revealed: Warrington’s busiest and quietest train stations this year

It comes as new data from regulator the Office of Rail and Road has been released, detailing the usage of individual stations.

Railway station footfall in Warrington continues to lag behind the levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic, the new figures show.

But usage of five of the town’s seven stations is up compared to figures from the previous study period.

Warrington Bank Quay continues, unsurprisingly, to be the town’s busiest and most used train station.

A total of 1.24million people frequented the hub in the year to March 2024, with figures released annually in November for this period, compared to 1.13million in the previous year.

This was followed by Warrington Central, with visits up to 1.22million from 1.1million in 2022-2023, and Birchwood, up to 372,320 from 358,756.

Warrington West in Chapelford saw a considerable rise in usage of 18 per cent, from 280,330 in 2022-2023 to 331,982 this past year.

Next most used was Padgate railway station, which was frequented 112,500 times compared to 104,464 the previous period.

Warrington’s two least used stations both saw falls in terms of their usage.

Second least used was Glazebrook, down to 23,972 from 24,296, with the least used being Sankey for Penketh – down by more than a half to just 1,362 from 3,358.

The latter was the eighth least used station in the north west.

Warrington Bank Quay continues to be the town's busiest rain station

Nationally, the total number of passenger entries and exits taken across Britain in the year to March reached 2.9billion – just shy of the 3billion pre-pandemic peak in 2019-20.

It is the closest the number of journeys on the nation's rail system has come to recovering to pre-pandemic levels.

There were 3.3million recorded entries and exits across the seven stations in Warrington in the year to March – down 16 per cent on 2020, when there were 3.9million entries and exits.

London Liverpool Street retained its title of Britain’s busiest station as passenger numbers using it soared, with all of the top-10 being in London.

The busiest stations in England outside of London were Birmingham New Street (33.3million entries and exits), Manchester Piccadilly (25.8million) and Leeds (24.9million).

The most used in the north west were Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Central, Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Victoria, with Chester coming ninth with 4.7million visitors.

On the statistics, Silviya Barrett, from the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “It is extremely encouraging to see that station usage is almost back to its pre-pandemic level, and that more people are choosing to travel sustainably by train.

“Attracting passengers back onto the railways should be a vital part of the Government’s plans to tackle the climate crisis.

“We hope to see further expansion of the rail network, as we have this past year with the opening of seven new stations.”

Feras Alshaker, director of planning and performance at the Office of Rail and Road, added: “These statistics provide crucial insights for passengers, the rail industry and its stakeholders, and demonstrate clearly how travel patterns are changing across the country.

“Alongside our rail usage statistics, they show that since the pandemic, rail usage continues to increase.”