Tom Anderson wrote:

I wonder why so many of the stations within London are so lightly used.
It's not as if there are tube lines nearby which are attracting people
away from them - although for quite a lot of the line, the main line and
Southbury loop are quite close together, and would compete for
passengers. I think the areas they serve are quite densely populated -
see the long spike of yellow protruding into greener suburbs he

snip

Could it be that those stations serve areas where people don't commute
to work in other parts of London, either working locally or, shock
horror, not at all?

That, and the service has effectively been subject to "closure by stealth".

Prior to the massive disruption caused during the A406 improvements, the
basic service pattern on the West Anglia Inners was, if memory serves:

2tph to Enfield Town
2tph to Cheshunt via Seven Sisters
2tph to Hertford East via Tottenham Hale
4tph to Chingford

With the improvements to the A406, the entrance to Angel Road station
(which SHOULD be convenient for Tesco Extra, IKEA, et al) was moved from
the Angel Road Viaduct to Conduit Lane, some distance from the country
end of the platforms.

Access is now via a staircase, which goes under the road bridge, and
then along a concrete "path" sandwiched between the Down Line and a
Scrap Yard, before emerging onto the Country End ramp of the Down
Platform. Passengers wishing to travel towards London then need to cross
the line by means of the concrete footbridge.

And the train "service" isn't much better:

There are 16 Up and 14 Down services Monday to Friday, with no service
at weekends and public holidays.

Of these, only the first Up and first Down trains (at 05:57 and 06:19
from Angel Road, respectively) run to/from Liverpool Street, the rest
start from/terminate at Stratford.

There's a gap of nearly 6 hours in the middle of the day (09:50 to
15:47) where NO trains call at the station, and the last Up train is at
19:50 to Stratford, with the last Down train at 19:17 to Bishops Stortford.

For a station in Travelcard Zone 4, that's *pathetic*.

Cheers,

Barry