City Thameslink named Britain's worst railway station for cancellations
Analysis of ORR data shows City Thameslink tops a list of the 100 busiest stations for train cancellations, as national rates edge higher.
City Thameslink in central London has been named the worst of Britain's 100 busiest railway stations for cancellations, according to Office of Rail and Road data analyzed by the BBC. Between August 2024 and August 2025, about one in 13 stops at City Thameslink were cancelled. Across the country, there were about 89 million scheduled train stops in the period, with roughly three million cancelled. The national cancellation rate rose slightly to 3.3% from 3.2% a year earlier.
Regional data show the North East had the highest cancellation rate at 4.5% of stops; the South West followed with 4.2%, and the North West logged 4.0%. Among affected stations, Earlswood ranked sixth worst for cancellations, with one in ten stops called off in the past year. Earlswood, managed by Thameslink, has seen disruptions that have disrupted daily routines for students and workers alike, including a university student who described late arrivals and the strain of explaining delays to professors.
City Thameslink is part of a network managed by Thameslink and City Thameslink, with Emma Pickard, network operations and performance director for Thameslink and Network Rail, acknowledging the service gaps. Pickard issued an apology for the disruption and said the agencies are actively working to improve reliability. She cited factors such as staffing levels, power supply issues, and weather precautions, while noting that across the industry there is ongoing work to tackle signalling faults, power supply faults, and to bolster traincrew availability. She added that actions to make the network more resilient to severe weather and other unexpected events are being pursued, and that when incidents outside operators’ control occur, the aim is to restore service quickly to limit wider disruption.
City Thameslink pointed out that trains arrive at City Thameslink roughly every 3.5 minutes. However, the network faced notable tests earlier this year when flooding closed the station for two days, underscoring the vulnerability of a high-frequency, city-centered route to disruption. The findings come as Britain’s rail system grapples with a gradual rise in cancellations and a push to improve punctuality and reliability across major corridors.