Least used railway station Redcar British Steel gets visitor boost

The loneliest railway station in Britain had something of a send-off before it was closed to the public.

Redcar British Steel station saw an 800% rise in visitors during 2018-19, having been named the least used station in the country by the Office of Rail and Road the year before

Those figures cover up to March 2019 and public access to the station shut in the December of that year.

As well as reporting on this year's list, we spoke to some of the people who helped lift the visitor figures to find out why they wanted to go to the stations no one uses.

As for this year’s loneliest, it's a tie between Stanlow and Thornton in Cheshire and Denton in Greater Manchester, which had 46 entries and exits each in 2018-19.

People wanting to visit Denton will have to time it right. There are only two trains stopping there, one in each direction, on a Saturday morning and it's a request stop.

Get the data

• Office of Rail and Road (ORR): Estimates of station usage 2018-19
• XLSX: Estimates of station usage 2018-19

Quotes and interviews

• Geoff Marshall, publisher of a YouTube channel dedicated to visiting stations across the UK
• Lewis Owens, who visits the least-used station each year
• Paul Burnell, BBC News, "At the scene" at Denton station

Visualisation

• Bar chart: Least used stations in Britain

Related repos

• In December 2017 we reported on the least used station in Britain seeing the 'biggest percentage growth' in the country - you can find the repo here
• We also used ORR data to factcheck a claim by a Telford MP in February 2018