Passenger numbers recover well

The latest figures from the ORR (Office for Road and Rail) for station footfall, that's the number of people getting on and off trains at a particular station, show that the Settle-Carlisle Line passenger numbers have recovered very well after the line was closed at the northern end for over a year by the Eden Brows landslide.  The chart shows a time series from 2005-06 to 2017-18 for Armathwaite which as the nearest station to the landslide was particularly badly affected.  

Passenger numbers all along the line suffered from December 2015 to March 2017 when Flying Scotsman reopened the line giving a welcome boost to people's awareness of this 72-mile gem.  Passenger numbers from stations all along the line are showing a similar recovery, with Settle almost back to the record number achieved in 2014-15 before Storm Desmond did the damage.

The figures for 2018-19, due out in a year's time, will no doubt show the detrimental effect of the strike action by Northern Rail conductors and we sincerely hope this will be resolved before it has too great an impact.

 

AWT station footfall