Britain’s loneliest train station in ‘friendly’ location gets just 68 customers a year

Anyone who’s ever stepped one foot into Liverpool Street or Euston station in London will know just how overstimulating it can be.

But with one extreme always comes another…

Introducing Elton & Orston Train Station, a teensy hub that serves the villages of Elton on the Hill and Orston in Nottinghamshire, England, and has officially been dubbed Britain’s ‘loneliest train station.’

Fully unstaffed, Elton & Orston station is effectively a ghost town — recording just 68 entries and exits through its gates in the year 2023 to 2024.

You’ll find no modern facilities at this station. No toilets, seating area, waiting room, or Costa Coffee.

But its doors stay open, keeping residents of these sleepy villages connected to the rest of the country.

The station, which was first opened in 1850, used to be far more vibrant when it operated steam trains in the mid 20th century. However, services have greatly reduced over the past 50 years.

There are only two services per day!

From Monday to Friday, there are only two services per day available at the station: one at 07:04am to Nottingham and one at 17:12pm to Skegness.

On Saturdays, passengers can catch either the 05:57am to Nottingham or the 17:10pm to Skegness. Unsurprisingly, there are no services available on Sundays.

And it’s not just been within the last year that the station has seen significantly low usage. Data recorded from 2021 to 2022 revealed a similarly minuscule 40 entries and exits at the station.

While this might sound shocking, especially given how in-demand train travel is across the UK, things start to make a lot of sense when you know more about the two small villages Elton & Orston station is catering to.

The first, Elton on the Hill, has a population of 114 people and covers an area of approximately 1,037 acres (4.20 km).

With no village pub or restaurant, the primary hub for socialising is The Grange, a bed-and-breakfast located in an early 19th-century farmhouse with parts dating back to 1725.

The second village, Orston, is quite the metropolis in comparison — boasting a population of 512, according to the 2021 census.

Orston has been described by residents as having a ‘strong community feel,’ being inherently ‘friendly’ and ‘picturesque.’

Unlike Elton on the Hill, Orston locals have access to a plethora of facilities to enrich country life.

There are dozens of clubs and sporting events held at the village hall, a central primary school, church events, and a lively pub and restaurant called The Durham Ox.

An overcrowded and mismanaged hell hole

And while Elton & Orston Train Station was busy snagging the title for loneliest station, London hub Liverpool Street managed to hold onto its top spot as Britain’s busiest station.

The station, which provides national train line services as well as access to the Underground, recorded 98 million journeys between 2024 and 2025.

But while Liverpool Street might have won first place, there’s another station in London that commuters and train passengers have collectively deemed the UK capital’s ‘hell hole.’

Euston station sees 100,000 entries and exits daily for its mainline services — and that isn’t taking into consideration the extra hustle and bustle from tube-goers.

@JoelOnMain posted on X: ‘I feel like the decline of Britain and everything wrong with the country is encapsulated within Euston Station.’

People on social media have long questioned the station’s layout and approach to the regular overcrowding.

@hul1ah wrote: ‘Where is the security and crowd management. If this were a music festival there would be a system.’

Network rail has tried to make changes to alleviate the so-called ‘Euston rush,’ announcing plans in 2024 to pursue a transformative five point plan.

One element of this involved implementing new protocol such as allowing passengers travelling on 40% of Avanti West Coast services to board trains 20 minutes before departure.

A year on, independent watchdog, London Travel Watch, has stated that ‘Welcome as these changes are, they are not exactly transformational.’