The UK’s Busiest Train Station Outside London Is In The West Midlands – And It Handles Over 36 Million Passengers A Year

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If there’s one word I’d use to describe New Street Station, it’s ‘chaos’. Handling over 170,000 passengers daily, this central hub of the British railway system is many people’s first port of call if they’re trying to get anywhere in the UK. I’ve always known it was busy, but I just didn’t appreciate how busy.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has released its annual estimates (March 2024 to April 2025) of the number of entries/exits and interchanges at each station in Great Britain (based on ticket sales). And it’ll come as no surprise that the top 10 list is completely dominated by London stations.

What is surprising is that, scroll down a little, Birmingham New Street (in 13th) is the busiest train station not only in the West Midlands, but the whole UK outside of London. In a year, it welcomed 36,623,678 exits and entrees, with 2,886,994 to or from London Euston alone.

To put that in context, it had more visitors than London Kings Cross (27,727,108), Manchester Piccadilly (27,401,610), Leeds (27,309,508) and Glasgow Central (25,293,930). These numbers pale in comparison to the busiest train stations, with London Liverpool Street welcoming 98,015,658 visitors over the past year.

When it comes to the rest of the West Midlands, New Street Station overshadows them all. The second busiest, Moor Street Station, only had 7,148,012 visitors, while Birmingham International (in fifth) had just 5,002,974 visitors—quite low when you consider Birmingham Airport (BHX) welcomed over 13 million passengers in 2024/25.

The busiest train stations in Great Britain:

1. London Liverpool Street (98.0m)
2. London Waterloo (70.4m)
3. London Paddington (69.9m)
4. Tottenham Court Road (68.1m)
5. London Bridge (54.7m)
6. London Victoria (53.8m)
7. Stratford (London) (51.5m)
8. Farringdon (50.2m)
9. Bond Street (42.8m)
10. London Euston (40.2m)

The busiest train stations outside of London:

1. Birmingham New Street (36.6m)
2. Manchester Piccadilly (27.4m)
3. Leeds (27.3m)
4. Glasgow Central (25.3m)
5. Edinburgh Waverley (22.8m)
6. Gatwick Airport (21.2m)
7. Brighton (15.3m)
8. Glasgow Queen Street (15m)
9. Liverpool Central (14.8m)
10. Liverpool Lime Street (14.4m)

The busiest train stations in the West Midlands:

1. Birmingham New Street (36.6m)
2. Birmingham Moor Street (7.1m)
3. Coventry (6.8m)
4. Wolverhampton (5.2m)
5. Birmingham International (5.0m)

To see the ORR’s annual estimates in detail, head here.