Waterlooooo, I was defeated you won the war lost the title of busiest UK train station.
Doesn’t quite have the same ring, but when it comes to London train stations, that fact is at least (now) true. For 16 years, London’s Waterloo Station has been crowned the busiest railway station in the whole of the UK – but now it has to settle for a third-place finish.
Still on the podium, but its golden crown has been taken by Liverpool Street, which is the busiest railway station in the whole UK, and the introduction of the Elizabeth Line in May 2022 has certainly played its part, given its used by approximately 4.3 million people per week.
London Liverpool Street is estimated to have seen a jump of 50 million passengers to take the top spot, seeing 80.4 million passing through in the past 12 months; with fellow Lizzie Line hub Paddington now hot on its heels with 59.2 million.
Neither of the top two busiest stations have reached the heights of Waterloo’s 86.9 million users in 2019-20, but the impact of the Elizabeth Line has meant the numbers have evened out across more stations.
Tottenham Court Road has now entered the top 10 busiest stations in the country for the first time with a not-too-shabby seventh-place finish, and Farringdon (you guessed it, another Elizabeth Line station) jumped 29 places to also score a spot at number nine.
Last week the Elizabeth Line experienced its busiest day since its opening, with an estimated 769,000 journeys on the service on December 6. It also experienced turmoil the following day, when the breakage of overhead power cables left 4,000 passengers stranded on the line for around four hours.
Waterloo will have to concede defeat this time, but being in the top three while not boasting the prowess of the shiny new Elizabeth line is still an impressive feat—and it sure as hell still feels busy, busy, busy!
