Date: 10/12/2016

You dont see much out the window as the 7.04 from Cambridge to Norwich rattles across the Fens on a dank December morning “ fields, mainly, which start to take shape as the sun rises somewhere behind the gloom. Then the train slows down and, out of nowhere, a platform appears. Kash, the conductor, seemed surprised when I had requested the stop. Oh, this is very rare, he said before alerting the driver. Very rare. Only one pair of doors open. I step out on to the empty platform, with no idea where to go. As the train pulls away “ right on time, at 7.28am “ Im alone. By the time the third carriage rushes past, Kash is a blur as he leans out of his window. Have fun! he shouts into the half-light. A cold wind strikes my face as silence returns to Britains quietest train station. [From Mark Bartlett]

External links

A brief encounter at Britains least-used railway station

Guardian

Shippea Hill station in Cambridgeshire is used by a grand total of one person a month. Its certainly not a place that feels full of life today, but it wasnt always this way

Related images

A class 86 on the back of a diverted Liverpool Street - Norwich service being dragged through Shippea Hill by a class 47 in June 1997 (due to a fallen tree blocking the main line at Diss). The working is doubly unusual in that the train is also running wrong-line following a points failure.
Location: Shippea Hill
Company: Eastern Counties Railway
12/06/1997 Ian Dinmore

Heather closing the level crossing gate at Shippea Hill in May 2011.
Location: Shippea Hill
Company: Eastern Counties Railway
/05/2011 Ian Dinmore

Across the Fens. Shippea Hill, Cambridgeshire, December 1993.
Location: Shippea Hill
Company: Eastern Counties Railway
12/12/1993 Ian Dinmore