Ghost stations across the UK survive despite lack of use

Thursday, March 28, 2024

A barely used railway station remains open, despite a service stopping there just once a week.

Bordesley in Birmingham is one of a handful of stations around the country known as ghost stations, which are kept open in this way.

Two others, Barlaston and Wedgwood in Staffordshire, have been served by rail-replacement buses since 23 May 2004.

Polesworth station in Warwickshire was only used by 188 people between April 2022 and March 2023.

Andrew McGill from West Midlands Railway said: “For every different station there’s always a different reason why they’ve fallen out of use.”

Usually, though, it was led by passenger demand, he added.

He said there was a financial consideration when it came to formally closing a station, especially if it was one which might need reopening at some point in the future.

Instead, he said: “It’s sometimes easier and simpler to keep that station open and to do that we need to run at least one service a week.”

Rail services which keep trains operational are known as a “parliamentary service”.

Mr McGill said: “When you’ve already got trains that are already making their way through the station often, simply calling one train a week at the station slowing it down, opening the doors and heading off again is a simpler and more effective way of keeping that station formally open.”

Bordesley’s one train a week calls on a Saturday afternoon.

“This station is quite likely to be demolished and actually formally closed in coming years, with the construction of new railway infrastructure as part of the Midlands Rail Hub plans,” Mr McGill said.

But he added: “For now the station exists, and will continue calling trains here while there is that very small demand for passengers to use it.”

West Midlands Trains welcomes visits from rail enthusiasts who like to go to ghost stations.

“We do get a lot of people visiting the stations just to take a trip on the train,” he said.

One of them, Youtuber JenOnTheMove, said: “They’re like special quirks of the network and there’s quite a few of them dotted around the country.”

Polesworth station is used by the 12th lowest number of people in the UK, in a network of more than 2,500 stations.

It also has no bridge linking the two platforms.

That was removed in 2004 when the West Coast mainline was upgraded, and it was never replaced.

Jen said there was talk of the station one day being reopened properly, but added: “It’s one of those things they keep saying is going to happen, but doesn’t seem to actually ever happen.”

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