London's most unloved ticket office has not sold a single ticket for a year
There are no barriers, no staff, and very few passengers, at Castle Bar Park station this morning.
With the number of tickets sold at the station between April 2022 and March 2023 at precisely zero, Castle Bar Park might just be the most unloved ticket office, and station, in London.
Sitting on the suburban line that runs between Ealing Broadway and Greenford, Castle Bar Park's platform is only long enough to accommodate the two-carriage trains that travel along the line every half-hour.
On the platform an A4 poster is stuck to a wall, announcing proposed changes to Castle Bar Park ticket office, which form part of the wider consultation period on all railway ticket offices.
It's not only ticket sales that Castle Bar Park is lacking. The station is one of the five least busy stations in London. Between April 2021 and March 2022, an estimated 41,000 journeys were made to or from the station.
That's just over 130 journeys for each day that trains stop at the station, and 0.002% of total journeys made of all London stations.
In comparison, just a mile away, West Ealing station saw three quarters of a million passengers pass through its barriers in a year. That's more than 2,000 passengers each day.
And at London Waterloo, the capital's busiest station, 250,000 journeys are made every day.
A message on the Great Western Railway website, which runs the Ealing Broadway to Greenford railway line, hints that the station may have already got ahead of planned closures.
"Castle Bar Ticket Office closure: The ticket office is currently closed," it reads. The National Rail website displays a similar message.
The relatively small number of passengers at Castle Bar Park might not miss its little-loved ticket office. But the imminent end of the consultation period continues to be a concern for many passenger in London who use the more than 150 stations in London whose ticket offices are facing closure.
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