Least Used Underground Stations

What are London’s least-used Underground stations?

For the past 3 years the below stations have remained consistently the least-used tube stations on the London Underground network. These top 3 are all located on the central line in Epping district.

1. Roding Valley

Roding Valley London Underground Station — Roding Valley Tube Station, very empty. The photo was taken on a Wednesday morning at around 10am.

Roding Valley is London’s least used tube station. Roding Valley is found on the central line.

0.26 million entry/exits in 2015
0.37 million entry/exits in 2016
0.37 million entry/exits in 2017

Roding Valley transports around the same number of passengers in 1 year, that London Waterloo does in 1 day. Whilst Roding Valley’s usage figures have steadily increased over the years, it has persistently remained London’s number one least used tube station.

2. Chigwell

Tube Train at Chigwell — A London Underground train arrives into Chigwell from Hainault

Also located on the Hainault Loop, Chigwell has remained London’s second least used tube station on the network.

0.56 million entry/exits in 2015
0.53 million entry/exits in 2016
0.50 million entry/exits in 2017

Train services were very infrequent at Chigwell. There was no information on the live departure boards, although conveniently the live departure boards show trains that are ‘not in service’, so was able to capture the Rail Adhesion Train which was running around 20 minutes late – a 1962TS train that clears leaves from the rails during autumn.

Due to the infrequency of the services, I decided to take a walk to Grange Hill, London’s third least used tube station and hope to catch the service I would have otherwise caught here at Chigwell. The fast paced walk took around 15 minutes.

Chigwell Station — Chigwell Tube Station, taken on my walk to Grange Hill station. Chigwell has a ticket gateline, unline Roding Valley.

3. Grange Hill

Grange Hill Tube Station — Grange Hill tube station. Grange Hill has a ticket gateline, unlike Roding Valley.

Grange Hill is on the central line between Chigwell and Hainault in fare zone 4. The station ticket hall was destroyed by a German V1 Doodlebug in WW2 and has since been rebuilt.

As well as being the 3rd least used tube station consecutively for the past 3+ years, Grange Hill could possibly also be in for recognition for the most roundels… A good 9 roundels can be seen in the above photo with one affixed to each lamppost.

0.66 million entry/exits in 2015
0.66 million entry/exits in 2016
0.67 million entry/exits in 2017

In the 15 minutes that I was at Grange Hill, I only saw one person at the station and nobody got off the train that I boarded (at around 12 noon).

Grange Hill Tube Station outside — Outside Grange Hill Tube Station. The ticket hall was destroyed during 1944 and has since been rebuilt.

Other Least Used Tube Stations

Whilst Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill are London’s 3 least used tube stations, there are several others that are also infrequently used but their usage figures vary year on year.

Theydon Bois – around 0.85 million entry/exits per year.
Chesham – around 0.87 million entry/exits per year.
Moor Park – around 0.89 million entry/exits per year.
South Kenton – around 0.95 million entry/exits per year.
- Did you Know? Rail Record has live train times for London Underground tube services on the Elephant & Castle to Harrow & Wealdstone lines.

As outlined above, the figures change each year so we’ve just made an estimate based on the last 3 year figures.

Author: matt

Owner of Rail Record