The United Kingdom’s worst railway stations for cancelled trains have been revealed in new data to be displayed in stations across England from 13 March 2025. For the first time, screens and QR codes will make monthly cancellations information publicly available, in a strategy intended to shame the worst performing operators into improvement.
The move is part of a government response to an all-time record low in train reliability across Britain. More than one in 25 services were cancelled between February 2024 and February 2025, a national average cancellation rate of 4%. But passengers at some stations experienced far worse statistics.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the displays” are a step towards rebuilding trust with passengers” in “a new era of rail accountability” that will see rail reforms “sweeping away decades of dysfunctionality – putting passengers first, driving growth through connectivity.”
Speaking on behalf of operators, Jacqueline Starr, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, said the transparency “shows how serious the industry is in putting this right by continuing to strive for improvements.”
The worst in the country
Outside London, for the four weeks to 1 February 2025, Ince and Elton in Cheshire suffered the most schedule violations, with a cancellation rate of 22.8%, according to Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures. The small northwesterly station was only due 92 scheduled stops in the first month of 2025. Though other stations saw far more raw numbers of cancellations, Ince and Elton’s place at the top of the list demonstrates how a small sample size can seem to skew percentage-based rankings.
Also illustrated by the data is the geographical clustering of stations with high cancellation rates that occurs when regional train lines experience systemic difficulties. Alongside Ince and Elton in the 20 worst stations are Gathurst (16.2 per cent), Ellesmere Port (9.7), and Little Sutton (9.1), which are all also in the north-west.
Another group of stations in Surrey and South Wales all came with an 11.7 per cent cancellation rate. In Cornwall, five stations served by the Great Western Railway averaged a 9.7% cancellation rate.
Major stations
Passengers at London Paddington had to put up with a cancellation rate of 5.4%, worse than at any other major station. Defined as stations with over 15,000 scheduled stops, the major stations shamed in the ranking were dominated by London. Liverpool Lime Street was number two with 5.4% of trains cancelled.
Elsewhere in the capital’s network, Homerton station in Hackney was the worst, with 9.22 per cent of trains (that’s a whopping 680) cancelled in the first four weeks of 2025. Again, the line can be followed to nearby Hackney Wick (second worst in London with 6.7% cancellations) and Hackney Central (fourth), with the cluster all served by the Mildmay line by London Overground.
In third place came Acton Main Line, served by Elizabeth Line, which was part of the problem at seven of the 10 worst “big” London stations. Transport for London (TfL) blamed poor Network Rail Western Route infrastructure and a lack of train crews. The Elizabeth line, currently run by MTR, is due to be taken over by GTS Rail Operations in May 2025.
The top 10 of badly performing big stations was rounded out by three stations in Merseyside’s Merseyrail network, which had third-rail electricity issues over the winter.
In addition to highlighting the worst performers, the data shows that 33 out of more than 18,000 stations had no cancellations during the four-week period.
