It’s a modern day horror story.
It’s 30C. You’re in work clothes, running to get the train home, literally dripping in sweat. If you don’t make this one it’s an hour’s wait. You make it but, of course, it’s rush hour, so the allocated two carriages are jam packed. You and hundreds of other disgruntled passengers pack together like sardines, all thinking the same thing: ‘this must be the busiest train in the country’.
Of course, only one journey can actually be the busiest, and thanks to the Department for Transport (DfT), we know exactly when and where it is.
The DfT has revealed the 10 busiest trains in England, and the top two are both along the same route. So where should you avoid at all costs? The 7.15am and 7.30am Thameslink services from Bedford to London, which generally have almost twice as many passengers as there are seats available crammed into them. On the 7.30am, there are 84 percent more people than seats, and on the slightly earlier 7.15am, that figure sits at 79 percent.
The Bedford-London route pops up again in fifth place for the 7.03am journey, which has 63 percent fewer seats than travellers. On the surface, it seems to be a pretty dire situation, but Thameslink says the numbers don’t tell the full story.
A representative from the company explained; ‘This survey doesn't reflect the fact that Thameslink trains, unlike other UK carriages, were specified by the DfT to be built as people-movers with fewer seats and lots of standing space.
‘This low density of seating sensibly allows more passengers to board services and travel in comfort on this busy commuter route.’
Journeys under 20 minutes are allowed a different proportion of standing to seated space by the DfT, but the Bedford to London route is 21 minutes long, which, Thameslink explains, also makes the trains look busier on paper than they are in reality; ‘standing space was left out of the calculations only because the train took one minute longer than the 20-minute threshold between its last station stop and London’. Basically, if the journey was two minutes shorter, it may not have appeared on the list at all, and certainly not in the top spot.
In joint second spot was the 5.46pm West Midlands service from London Euston to Crewe. It had 79 percent ‘passengers in excess of capacity’, as the industry describes it. In fact, all bar one of the top 10 busiest journeys either began or ended at a London station. The only exception was a 7.54am train from Leamington Spa to Birmingham Snow Hill, which operates with 72 percent more people than places to sit.
The most crowded trains in England
Here is the full list of England’s most crowded trains, including exactly how many more passengers there are than seats:
- Thameslink, 7.30am Bedford to London St. Pancras, 84 percent
- Thameslink, 7.15am Bedford to London St Pancras, 79 percent
- West Midlands Trains, 5.46pm London Euston to Crewe, 79 percent
- West Midlands Trains, 7.54am Leamington Spa to Birmingham Snow Hill, 72 percent
- Thameslink, 7.03am Bedford to London St Pancras, 63 percent
- South Western Railway, 5.35pm London Waterloo to Weymouth, 61 percent
- Chiltern Railways, 6.14am Stourbridge Junction to London Marylebone, 58 percent
- South Western Railway, 6pm London Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour, 56 percent
- Chiltern Railways, 6.59 London Marylebone to Aylesbury Vale Parkway, 55 percent
- South Western Railway, 6.27am Fareham to London Waterloo, 53 percent
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