• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

[Trivia] Least used staffed stations

Status
Not open for further replies.

Gathursty

Established Member
Joined
31 May 2011
Messages
2,517
Location
Wigan
Bit surprised there wasn't already a thread on this unless I'm using the search bar incorrectly.

Based on the most recent ORR usage counts, what is the least used:

- Part-time staffed station (eg: Chassen Road/Worle or any other station where staff leave after peak periods)
- Full-time staffed station (any station with staff in all day Mon-Fri, not fussed about the weekend: Far North Line termini and others are included as they have shorter opening hours for obvious reasons)?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Springs Branch

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2013
Messages
1,418
Location
Where my keyboard has no £ key
A quick sort of the Excel file for station usage published by ORR throws up couple of examples in Northern-land:

1) Part time staffing:-
  • Glazebrook: 45,432 pax, Ticket office 07:10 to 10:10 M-F
  • Moorside: 45,708 pax, Ticket office 06:25 to 12:55 M-F
  • Chassen Road: 49,210 pax, Ticket office 06:55 to 10:00 M-F
2) Full time staffing:
  • West Allerton: 101,296 pax, Ticket office 05:55 to 23:50 M-Sa & 10.00 to 17:45 Su
"pax" = entries & exits in 2017/18 according to ORR station usage data.
Ticket office hours as per current NRE website

Carstairs?
= 84,166 pax, Part time ticket office 07:20 to 14:24 M-Sa
 
Last edited:

scrapy

Established Member
Joined
15 Dec 2008
Messages
2,081
Farnworth station is staffed part time and only saw 36k passengers in the last year. I do however think this is massively under estimated as Manchester is by far the most popular destination and passengers buy Bolton to Manchester seasons/returns as they are the same price, and give a lot greater flexibility.
 

Trackman

Established Member
Joined
28 Feb 2013
Messages
2,922
Location
Lewisham
Farnworth station is staffed part time and only saw 36k passengers in the last year. I do however think this is massively under estimated as Manchester is by far the most popular destination and passengers buy Bolton to Manchester seasons/returns as they are the same price, and give a lot greater flexibility.
Northern says it is open Monday-Friday 05:14-00:20.
I don't know if it's correct or not.
They all had ticket offices on that route at one time, I remember one at Clifton!
I don't know how Farnworth has survived with those numbers and it has a ticket machine.
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
Llandrindod Wells station: 40,128 passengers; staffed part-time.

Just going to mention that place - and on an agency basis. (in passing , do they still provide a partial trolley service twixt there and Llanwrtyd) , a good little move that.
 

Noddy

Member
Joined
11 Oct 2014
Messages
1,009
Location
UK
Out of interest is there any particular criteria used for staffing stations or is it just totally ad hoc? My local station Cam and Dursley is unstaffed with around 200k users annually yet nearby Stonehouse is manned in the mornings but has a fewer users (150k). In addition 100s of new houses are already approved (and being built) in the fields immediately around C&D with potentially 1000s more if the draft Stroud local plan is approved. So it’s highly likely that the station will see further significant growth over the next few years.
 

WatcherZero

Established Member
Joined
25 Feb 2010
Messages
10,272
A combination of still being used well enough to justify through the latter half of the 20th century and surviving into privatisation with it still open where it became a lot harder to remove. Main reason for closing ticket offices nowadays is if the ticket office building is too decrepit to continue and it wouldnt be worthwhile to replace even with a portacabin.
 

30907

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Sep 2012
Messages
17,864
Location
Airedale
A combination of still being used well enough to justify through the latter half of the 20th century and surviving into privatisation with it still open where it became a lot harder to remove. Main reason for closing ticket offices nowadays is if the ticket office building is too decrepit to continue and it wouldnt be worthwhile to replace even with a portacabin.
Plus, in cases like Stonehouse, having a regular InterCity service.
 

AndrewE

Established Member
Joined
9 Nov 2015
Messages
5,063
As long as you dealt "prompt , civil and obliging" to the customers (to quote the 1972 BR Rule Book) - you could get some quality book reading in.
...but you might exhaust the local library pretty quickly!
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
...but you might exhaust the local library pretty quickly!

Might be spoiled then by our excellent and very well stocked local libraries ....(plus own supply) - OT I know , but you know what I mean. Many BO clerks used to use the quiet hours not just for reading . but for other productive work , of a community benefit.
 

satisnek

Member
Joined
5 Sep 2014
Messages
886
Location
Kidderminster/Mercia Marina
A combination of still being used well enough to justify through the latter half of the 20th century and surviving into privatisation with it still open where it became a lot harder to remove. Main reason for closing ticket offices nowadays is if the ticket office building is too decrepit to continue and it wouldnt be worthwhile to replace even with a portacabin.
Or put another way, legacy. Using that criteria I was surprised to discover quite recently that Mexborough has a ticket office.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top