‘It’s chaos’: ruined plans, lost hours at UK’s worst station for cancelled trains

Passengers at Huddersfield railway station, where trains run with too few carriages, depart unheralded with passengers still on the concourse, or never show up at all. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

From the outside, all stately neoclassical facade and Corinthian columns, Huddersfield station looks an unlikely centre of rail chaos. But its rate of cancelled trains is the highest in Britain – a statistic that comes as no surprise to passengers here, halfway between Manchester and Leeds on the TransPennine route.

Waiting on platform one, Zay Alabi, 20, a psychology student, is attempting for a second time in three days to get to an appointment in Manchester Victoria: “I’ve had to plan it and I’ve factored in an extra hour and a half.” He rescheduled after cutting it too fine before, with one train cancelled and the next one too full to board.