More than a million people used Blackburn train station last year, as passenger numbers more than tripled from the Covid-19 lockdowns period, but have dropped from pre-Covid years.

Station usage between March 2021 and April 2022 showed 1,065,362 people entered and exited the station, almost 3,000 people a day.

This is a huge jump from the year before – March 2020 to April 2021 – when the country went through a number of lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when numbers were 393,174.

However it is a drop from March 2019 to April 2020, when 1,323,216 people went through Blackburn station, and it is a trend that exists across most of East Lancashire’s stations.

These figures show there could still be some hesitancy in using the railways as Covid has not gone away, or that more people are now working from home permanently or have moved to different modes of transport.

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Burnley Manchester Road was the second busiest station with 421,608 entries and exits last year, but this was also down from pre-pandemic levels – 482,736 – while Burnley Central also dropped to 99,658 from 102,278.

Coming third was Accrington, where 385,604 passengers used the station, but this was also a significant fall from before Covid-19, when the figure was 465,758.

Passenger numbers in Clitheroe dropped to 257,792, a fall of more than 47,000, while it was the same picture in Darwen, falling sharply from 351,974 to 234,638.

Nelson’s numbers also followed the trend, down from 121,256 pre-Covid to 90,644, as did the majority of the stations in the region.

Rose Grove in Burnley saw the biggest percentage fall in passengers, with numbers dropping by 28.3 per cent, followed by Brierfield with 27.5 per cent, and Langho with 26.3 per cent. On average, passenger numbers in East Lancs fell by 13.1 per cent.

A few stations in East Lancashire saw a rise in passenger numbers post-Covid, with Church & Oswaldtwistle station seeing the biggest rise of 4,450 to 42,370.

Burnley Barracks also saw a boost in passengers, rising by 920 to 26,928, as did Entwistle, with 19,296 people using the station, an increase of 3,518.

Feras Alshaker, Director of Planning and Performance at the Office of Rail and Road said: “It is heartening to see passengers return to travelling by rail following what was a difficult period for the industry during the pandemic.

“There’s still some way to go in order for station usage figures to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“Once again it is important to thank all those in the rail industry, who continue to work hard to help people travel safely and with confidence.”

The busiest station across all of Lancashire was Preston, with 4.17 million people using the city’s station last year, but that is down from 4.94m before the pandemic.

Blackpool North ranked second with 1.78m passengers, followed by Ormskirk and Lancaster, both with 1.66m.