Angel Road - London's Least Used Station

After riding the new Crossrail Class 345 trains, I boarded a Greater Anglia service from Stratford, taking me to Angel Road, London's least used railway station.

My service was bound for Bishop's Stortford via Tottenham Hale, a service that starts at Stratford and is hourly throughout the day, however except at peak times, the service does not call at Angel Road, so you must time your visit well.

I alighted at Angel Road under 20 minutes after boarding, as did 3 fellow passengers and had a look round.

The station is surrounded by industrial estates, like the Coca-Cola bottling facility, as well as two overpasses that the station lies under, and a scrap metal yard.

The only way to enter Angel Road is via a footbridge over a dump and under an overpass, then alongside the railway line to the platforms.

 After you walk down the path, you
are greeted by a working permit to travel machine and a pair of oyster validators.

As you can see on the timetable, not many
trains stop at Angel Road in the week, and
none do at weekends.

There is no ticket machine at Angel Road, meaning that unless you have an oyster card with sufficient credit or a contactless card, the only way not to be charged a penalty fare is to use the Permit to Travel machine, which, if your wondering, does accept old and new pound coins. I, of course, obtained a permit for 5p, and continued to look round London's least used station.

The station is comprised of two platforms, with a footbridge linking them just past the oyster validators.

There are plenty of benches lined along both platforms, and one covered bench on the London-bound platform, but not much else. Note that the very southern end of both platforms is located beneath the A406 North Circular.

Trains pass through the station at high speed around every 5-10 minutes, bound for Cambridge, Hertford East, Bishops Stortford or Stansted Airport.

According to the Office of Rail and Road, in the 2016-17 period just 33,544 people (around 92 a day) visited the station, up from 27,754 (around 76 a day) in the 2015-16 period and under half of the 85,770 people (235 a day)  the station was visited by in the 2014-15  period.

However this could rise significantly, as Enfield Council and Network Rail have got the green light to start a new project called Meridian Water, which is a new development of 10,000 homes in and around the area, being supported by a new train station 300 metres downline towards London being built and named after the project. As a result of this, Angel Road is set for complete closure and replacement by the new station, which should be operational by May 2019 and is under construction right now. As the area will require more rail services for new passengers living in the development, the West Anglia mainline is currently being 3 tracked (from 2 today) between Stratford and the future site of Meridian Water Station to allow for a more frequent service to the area. 

Thanks for reading, comments are appreciated.