“USE them or lose them” – that’s the message from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) after revealing the most and least used train stations in the North East of England.

Through recently published data, the transport agency has issued a stern warning to people who live in locations with train stations but never use them, and to those that could use public transport for both leisure and commuting.

Within its data, which was generated by reviewing passenger numbers in each train station through their ‘entries and exits’, the ORR has calculated the most popular rail facilities in the region and those that should have more usage.

Here's the ORR data on passenger numbers in the North East:

The most used stations in the North East

It’s little surprise that the top of the table for entries and exits in 2020/21 was Newcastle with 1.5 million journeys. Used as a popular destination, as well as a main link between London and Edinburgh, the major city has been topping the table for the last several years.

Darlington is the second most used train station in the North East with 537,000 journeys, beating Durham (472,000), Middlesbrough (342,000) and Hartlepool (169,000).

The Northern Echo: Darlington Station finished highly in the ORR data. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.Darlington Station finished highly in the ORR data. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.

Despite the stations scoring highly for passenger numbers, rail journeys as a whole have fallen during the pandemic, and significantly lessened compared to the 2019/20 passenger data.

In 2019/20, Newcastle saw over eight million passengers, while Darlington and Durham both got over two million each.

ORR director of planning and performance Feras Alshaker, has explained why the trends for people using train travel is different compared to before the pandemic.

The Northern Echo: Durham Station also finished highly in the train passenger rankings. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.Durham Station also finished highly in the train passenger rankings. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.

He said: “We’ve seen a radical change in the stations people were using the most.

“This year we have seen many railway stations with very few passenger entries and exits. However, we know that recent figures show leisure journeys are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, while there has been a slower increase in commuter journeys.”

The least used stations in the North East

In contrast, the least used stations in the North East saw Eaglescliffe finish bottom of the table after only managing to see 29,000 passengers for the whole of 2020-21, a massive drop from 129,000 from the previous year.

Next up was Chester-le-Street with 31,000 passengers, Horden (33,000) and Seaham (35,000), which have all seen an almost 100,000 drop each since 2019-20.

The Northern Echo: Chester-Le-Street ranks second lowest in the whole of the North East. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.Chester-Le-Street ranks second lowest in the whole of the North East. Picture: NORTHERN ECHO.

Bishop Auckland also finished relatively low, having only brought in 50,000 entries and exits during 2020-21 – with the ORR putting these worrying trends down to the fact that commuters are choosing to still not return to the rail, but passengers travelling for leisure are.

As a result of the low passenger numbers, the transport agency has warned that stations that have consistently low numbers could be ‘reshuffled’ in the future.

However, there aren’t any solid plans to close or repurpose any train facilities yet.

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