PASSENGER numbers across Fife's railway stations last year plummeted as more people stayed at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Statistics from the Office of Rail and Road show an estimated 695,000 passengers used Fife's 19 stations in 2020-21.

This was 87 per cent fewer than in 2019-20, when 5.5 million travelled on trains in the area.

In the Times area, Cowdenbeath recorded 17,956 passengers, a significant decline on the previous year when 135,050 were registered - a fall of 86 per cent.

Lochgelly had 6,014 entries and exits, a decrease from 55,306; 89 per cent fewer passengers.

Cardenden station had 42,734 passengers in 2019-20, but that also fell substantially to just 3,062 people - a staggering 92 per cent decline.

The busiest station across the Kingdom was Inverkeithing, which saw 156,000 entries and exits by passengers.

However, this was down from 1.1 million the year before, and the lowest number of passengers since comparable records began in 1997.

This was followed by Kirkcaldy, with 139,000, and Leuchars (For St. Andrews), which saw 74,400 passengers use the station.

In Fife, the quietest station was Springfield, which welcomed 254 passengers last year, compared to 1,670 in 2019-20.

The busiest station in Scotland – with an estimated 5.3 million passengers – was Glasgow Central.

Across Great Britain, usage of railway stations fell from 3 billion in 2019-20 to 687 million – a fall of 77 per cent.

The figures are based primarily on ticket sales.

Six stations in Britain had no passengers in 2020-21, mainly due to services being suspended because of the coronavirus crisis.

Andy Bagnall, director-general at industry body the Rail Delivery Group, said: “The station usage figures show how the rail industry kept people moving for the first year of the pandemic.

“Some of the entries on the list reflect where people like key workers were travelling from and also the acceleration of changes to how people are travelling after the pandemic.

“Rail companies are working together to welcome people back and the recent increase in passengers continues to both reflect and support the nation’s recovery.”

Separate figures from a YouGov poll of 56,000 adults show 51 per cent of Britons think their local train services are very good or fairly good.

In Scotland, 47 per cent of people surveyed said the same.

Article by Patrick Jack, Data Reporter