Railway Station Of The Week
I used to commute to and from London’s Waterloo station every day. It is no surprise that this testament to the grimness of commuting has been named for the fourteenth year running as the busiest UK railway station by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) with just under 100 million passengers journeys a year. That it will top the list is something you can rely upon, which is more than can be said for the services that run from the wretched place.
For a more pleasurable commuting experience you might want to try Barry Links station in Scotland which is on the Carnoustie to Dundee line and is one stop down from Golf Street station. Just 24 passengers, according to the ORR, got on or off this unmanned station in 2016 -17. Two trains stop a day, Mondays to Saturdays only, the 06.08 to and the 19.11 from Dundee. There is no buffet so make sure you catch your train.
Even Vicki Pipe and Geoff Marshall, who in 2017 visited all of Britain’s 2,563 National Rail stations didn’t alight there. Under their self-imposed rules of their escapade, they had to be travelling on a train that stops at each station on their list.
Still things may just be about to change.
Shippea Hill in Cambridgeshire, last year’s least used station with a paltry twelve passengers, saw its numbers rocket, thanks to the oxygen of publicity, to a more respectable 156. And supporters of Barry Links think that the Open Golf Championship at Carnoustie this year may just boost numbers.
We will see.
