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As a confirmed public transport freak, I was wondering recently: which Sydney railway stations are the busiest?
Transport NSW shares a lot of statistics via its Open Data initiative, and for this question the most useful figures come from its Train Station Entries and Exits Data set. So I’ve added together the total entries and exits for all 317 stations in the Sydney Trains and Intercity networks for calendar 2023.
10 busiest Sydney train stations 2023
| Rank | Station | Total entries+exits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Town Hall Station | 48530080 |
| 2 | Central Station | 45069900 |
| 3 | Wynyard Station | 33502750 |
| 4 | Parramatta Station | 21483410 |
| 5 | Chatswood Station | 15175890 |
| 6 | Redfern Station | 14787650 |
| 7 | Circular Quay Station | 14750990 |
| 8 | Strathfield Station | 13693000 |
| 9 | Bondi Junction Station | 12583420 |
| 10 | Burwood Station | 11212170 |
This data is drawn from Opal card taps, so NSW Trainlink services going from Central to regional destinations wouldn’t count. That said, even adding all those in would be unlikely to make up the 3 million visitor lead which Town Hall has over Central. This confirms why Town Hall is so utterly horrendous in peak hours.
Predictably, the list is dominated by CBD locations and major interchanges.
Unsurprisingly, stations on the main Sydney Trains network have much higher patronage than Intercity stations further out from Sydney proper. The busiest of those is Gosford, but even that only ranks at #61 in the overall list.
10 busiest Sydney Intercity train stations 2023
| Rank | Station | Total entries+exits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gosford Station | 2241340 |
| 2 | Woy Woy Station | 1739730 |
| 3 | Wollongong Station | 1004710 |
| 4 | Newcastle Interchange | 958810 |
| 5 | Katoomba Station | 718920 |
| 6 | North Wollongong Station | 718210 |
| 7 | Wyong Station | 633790 |
| 8 | Tuggerah Station | 594260 |
| 9 | Springwood Station | 492050 |
| 10 | Thirroul Station | 473570 |
The major stations on the Central Coast/Newcastle line dominate this list, with a decent showing from the South Coast line and Springwood sneaking in on the Blue Mountains route.
10 least used Sydney train stations 2023
This list needs a lot of caveats. There are 10 stations (Aberdeen, Hilldale, Lochinvar, Lysaghts, Mindaribba, Penrose, Rydal, Tallong, Wallarobba and Wirragulla) which gets less than 50 visitors a month every single month of the year. As a result Transport NSW doesn’t give any individual figures for visits, so we can’t rank them properly.
These are all remote stations on Intercity routes, and several are request-only. That doesn’t guarantee a low number visitors, I might note – Wondabyne, an infamous Central Coast station which can’t even be accessed by road and requires a request stop to the guard, managed a total of 8490 entrances and exits during the year, which surprises me a little.
Also cue my obligatory video from Mindaribba station a few years back: you can see it’s not built for crowds!
With that noted, these are the 10 least visited stations for which we have annual totals – though some of these don’t have a figure for every month. Again they’re all small Intercity stops towards the far end of lines, and again some are request-only.
| Rank | Station | Total entries+exits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Martins Creek Station | 260 |
| 2 | Wingello Station | 530 |
| 3 | Greta Station | 570 |
| 4 | Marulan Station | 650 |
| 5 | Tarana Station | 840 |
| 6 | Bell Station | 980 |
| 7 | Exeter Station | 1370 |
| 8 | Zig Zag Station | 1770 |
| 9 | Paterson Station | 2840 |
| 10 | Tarro Station | 2880 |
Bathurst Station, which is pictured at the top of this article, manages a quite respectable 44760 entrances and exits – not bad when you only get two trains a day.
Getting a list for Sydney Trains (as distinct from Intercity) also requires some caveats. The data set includes the currently-shuttered Carlingford line, because it’s being served by a rail replacement bus at the moment. But I don’t think that counts either. So these are the 10 actual urban Sydney stations with the fewest visitors.
| Rank | Station | Total entries+exits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clarendon Station | 42890 |
| 2 | Vineyard Station | 65070 |
| 3 | East Richmond Station | 108090 |
| 4 | Mount Kuring-gai Station | 109050 |
| 5 | Leightonfield Station | 111020 |
| 6 | Mulgrave Station | 128940 |
| 7 | Casula Station | 177070 |
| 8 | Loftus Station | 185400 |
| 9 | Waterfall Station | 201640 |
| 10 | Helensburgh Station | 218880 |
The top 3 stations here are all on the Richmond line, but northern and southern routes also get a look in.
Hat tip to Diamond Geezer whose methodical annual summary of similar train data for the UK absolutely inspired this.
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