Station Usage Figures

As is usual at this time of year, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has published the station usage figures for National Rail. They are described as "estimates" and give the aggregate of entries and exits based upon ticket sales. Therefore, they are not accurate in respect of tickets which are not issued "station-to-station" such as railcards, nor can they be accurate where tickets are issued to a group of stations. Those for the Far North Line are reproduced below. If you compare them with FNE 59 , you will see that some of the 2011/12 figures do not agree. This is because they have been "refined" in the meantime. There are only minor changes on our patch which do not materially affect the statistics but, elsewhere in the country, there have been a number or dramatic revisions and we should bear this in mind when considering our own. Just to give you some idea of the efficacy of the statistics, the previously least used station on National Rail, Dorking West (which is in a "group" as mentioned above - the other two being Dorking and Dorking (Deepdene)), has had its 2011/12 figure revised from 22 to 16 but its 2012/13 figure is 55,774. Make of that what you will! In 2012/13, if we believe what we are told, Kildonan is one of seven stations that had fewer than 100 passengers in a year. The others were Tees-side Airport, County Durham (8); Coombe, Cornwall (48); Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire (50); Barry Links, Angus (52); Buckenham, Norfolk (72); and Elton & Orston, Nottinghamshire (72). In case you are thinking that the figure for Tees-side Airport does not auger well for the proposed Inverness Airport station at Dalcross, the former does not properly serve the airport once called that - it's now Durham Tees Valley - but is a good ten minutes' walk away along a partially unlit road with no pavement. It only has one train each way a week, both of them during daylight hours on a Sunday. The other stations on the list also have a sparse service.