Four Greater Manchester train stations named among worst in the UK

There are many, many great things about Manchester, but our local rail service isn’t one of them, with frequent cancellations and delays the norm.

This is backed up by data Network Rail obtained from software company RotaCloud, via the Freedom of Information Act, which shows that four of Greater Manchester’s stations are among the twenty worst in the UK.

The numbers compared 2,566 train stations across the country, to see how many delays and cancellations each one faced.

Michael Dibb / Geograph

According to these figures, some stations faced issues on nearly two-thirds of their services, with Lancaster topping the list with a 63.5% average of affected journeys in the last year – around 2.1 million people use it yearly, to put it into perspective.

The majority of bad stations are located in the North of England – which isn’t surprising considering we’ve had to deal with Northern Rail – and Greater Manchester has four stations in the top twenty.

Manchester Oxford Road came in at fourth worst, with 62.8% of services affected, followed by Stalybridge in eighth (60.3%), Manchester Deansgate in 16th (57%) and Stockport in 20th (56.2%).

Thomas Nugent / Geograph

James Lintern, co-founder of RotaCloud, said about the figures: “We wanted to take a deeper look into the reliability of the country’s trains, and we built our ‘punctuality tool’ to highlight the sheer volume of delays, cancellations and general lateness in the rail network. The country’s hardworking railway staff are spread paper-thin, and we didn’t build this tool to give them more of a bashing than they’re already getting.

“But if it can help illustrate the scope of this problem in a more relatable way, especially to other employers in some of the worst affected areas, it might encourage more businesses to adopt things like flexible working, where possible — something that can only help ease the strain on our overburdened trains and stations.”

These are the top 20 worst stations for delays:

1. Lancaster (63.5%)
2. Wakefield Westgate (63%)
3. Durham (62.8%)
4. Manchester Oxford Road (62.8%)
5. Meadowhall, Sheffield (62.5%)
6. Smethwick Galton Bridge, Birmingham (60.7%)
7. Inverkeithing, Fife (60.3%)
8. Stalybridge (60.3%)
9. Huddersfield (59.7%)
10. Birmingham New Street (58.7%)
11. Darlington (58.1%)
12. Sheffield (57.3%)
13. Wakefield Kirkgate (57.1%)
14. Wolverhampton (57.1%)
15. York (57%)
16. Manchester Deansgate (57%)
17. Birmingham International (56.9%)
18. Warrington Bank Quay (56.8%)
19. Coventry (56.7%)
20. Stockport (56.2%)