Morning, I'm in Yorkshire, always a pleasure to be here
at the magnificent Sheffield Station.
Leaving from Platform 4A slightly late,
and I'm with, dun dun dun dun dun da dun,
everybody, this is Simon! Hello!
Simon, what we doing?
We're visiting Darnall, the least used station
in South Yorkshire. Let's do it.
(exciting electronic music)
Simon, tell the YouTubes who you are, what's your channel?
My name is Simon. Hello Simon.
And I'm also on YouTube at SimOnTrains.
That is also on screen now,
but we'll give your YouTube channel, like, a proper,
full plug later, when we're on.
And we're literally going one stop,
it's like four minutes to Darnall.
That's right. Which side do we think
the platform? I think it's that side.
I think it's that side.
(door beeping) It was that side.
Welcome to Darnall!
That's Fred, by the way, hi Fred!
Hello, hello!
Nice to meet you! Nice to meet you!
See you later.
(train rumbling away)
Did you get his number?
It was 195011.
Have you seen that one before?
I can't remember if I have or not.
What, I can't even say, what a beautiful day!
It is, yeah! Look at the sun!
Welcome to Darnall.
First impressions, Simon? Different!
Different! (laughs) Yeah!
Quiet! Quiet, yes.
Okay, I'm worried there's not gonna be a lot here.
No, it doesn't look like it.
No, we've got to make Darnall
very interesting somehow, okay.
Simon's checking to see
whether there's gonna be any fast trains coming through?
There's none. So it's just an hourly
service between Leeds and Lincoln?
That's right. And they stop.
We'll find the timetable in a minute.
But mainly there's this magnificent, that.
You ready to do a classic walking down the ramp shot?
Like side-by-side, and we'll start, "start,"
at the outside and then work our way back in.
I love it, I love it already.
We've come outside, it's a glorious day.
I take back everything I've ever said
about it raining in the north in Yorkshire.
The sun is out, it is splendid.
Simon, I've found things!
You've found some stuff. I've found stuff!
Where are we? Oh, there's the tram.
So that's the Sheffield Supertram.
Okay. And I think
that's the on-board connection from Sheffield
where you can get trains to Huddersfield, Wakefield,
Doncaster, Hull, Lincoln. And then we're out
on this line here, 'cause there's--
Yeah, there's Darnall. There's Darnall.
Going out to West Lincoln. That.
There we go. Yeah.
And, am I right in thinking it's hourly?
6:40, 6:41, I think it's hourly in the morning peak,
about half an hour in the morning peak,
then I think it's hourly during the off-peak.
Is there a Sunday service?
Two hourly.
9:46, 11:46, 13:19, then there's nothing 'til 16:43.
(shoes scraping)
We've been for a wander, we can confirm
that Darnall has got a little high street and main road,
and there's shops, bought a drink and everything.
There's a petrol garage and a news agent and everything,
it's all happening.
If I just rest the camera here,
let's go for Dutch tilt angle, Simon, there we go.
Hi, come on in.
Yep. Still a sunny day.
Gonna put you on the spot, have you been observing
all the amenities that Darnall has to offer?
I have, yes.
Are there litter bins? Yes.
How many?
I've seen two. Two.
Is there more than two, is that?
I think just one. No, there's one there,
and there's one there. Oh, I didn't see that one.
Are there dot-matrix screens?
Yes. There are! (laughs)
Just above our heads.
Is there a car park?
Yes, only a very small car park.
I mean, it's sort of the end
of a residential road, isn't it?
I mean, people's houses literally back on to the side
of Darnall Station.
We've established it has a ticket machine.
Yes. Have we heard
any PA announcements? No!
There's CCTV, is there a PA?
Don't see any speakers. Okay, all right.
Is there a shop?
Yes.
Not on the station, though!
Is there a bike rack?
I haven't seen one. No!
And also, what else do I do?
I've forgotten my own list of things.
Help point! Oh yeah!
(machine beeping) It's working.
I thought we were gonna get a "please wait."
"Please wait!" (phone ringing)
It's ringing.
How long you prepared to wait, Simon?
Further. (phone beeping)
(laughs) And we've got at least an hour
until our next train, so.
Northern Control, come to station,
York West speaking.
Hello, when's next train to Woodhouse, please?
Darnall to Woodhouse, bear with me.
Okay.
Unfortunately, the next one
won't be until 14:43. Okay.
The 13:45's been cancelled, sir, I'm afraid.
All right, no worries, thank you.
All right, cheers. Bye.
And that does tally with the dot-matrix.
Yes. The next one, sadly,
has been cancelled. Is cancelled.
Oh, oh well.
(train squealing into station)
That's the 13:28.
13:29, sorry, at 13:28.
Departing 13:30, going back to Leeds from Lincoln.
The guard, she popped out on to the platform, had a look.
Nobody gone, and nobody off.
Least used station.
Have you noticed there's a really good echo?
If you shout, hello!
Hello! (tunnel echoes)
I love a good echo.
Pacer!
What's your favourite type of train, Simon?
Oh, that's a tough one. You've got to shout it,
down the subway!
Class 37! There we go!
Shall we go to the shelter?
Yes. Let's do that.
Is Class 37 really your favourite train?
Yes! Mine too.
But except, I don't really spot trains.
People often say, do you not like trains, Geoff?
And I'm more about sort of the stations,
and the lines, and the maps,
but you are, well, you started as a classic spotter, right?
So as a teenager, or in your 20s,
you wrote down-- I was young.
How young were you? Oh, that is going back.
Wow. Are you old, now?
Are you middle aged? Yes, middle aged.
So what, so you started out as a spotter,
and then you took photos, and then you moved to video?
How did your channel come about?
And would you still classify yourself as a spotter,
or more as an enthusiast? More as enthusiast.
Okay, right.
What's your channel? SimOntrains.
But it's SimOn with an O, isn't it?
Which is kind of fun. Yes, capital O.
Capital O, you on Twitter, too, as?
SimOntrains. Simon,
this is very exciting.
Did you, as I requested (laughs)
look up the passenger numbers for Darnall Station?
I sure did. So! (slaps knee)
The slappy knee drum roll, the figures for the last period
from the office at Roundham Road were?
4,954.
Can you divide that by 365 for an approximate daily figure
or would you like me to get my calculator out?
No, I can't, my maths is rubbish.
Oh, my calculator's down, then, hang on.
Once again, four? 4,954.
54 divided by 365.
13 people. 13 people.
13 point, it'll be on the screen, 13 point something.
And we've seen no one get on or off.
But, that was the lockdown stats, wasn't it not?
So before that, do you know what it was?
13,450.
So it got cut by, what, two-thirds?
I would say so, yeah. You'd think, maybe,
it would come back, okay, all right.
Give us a bit of history about the station,
'cause you're saying that this island platform
is a classic design of what? The Great Century Railway.
Wasn't built by the Great Century Railway,
but it was inspired by the Great Century Railway.
So it's been here since what year?
1928.
Even though the station was here since 1849.
1849? Yeah!
Okay, all right.
And I'm thinking, did it used to be a lot more ground,
would it have had like a station building,
and a proper ticket
or ticket office? Yeah, it did actually.
When it was built, Darnall was actually spelt with one L.
D-A-R-N-A-L. Yeah.
So when did the second L get added?
1877. Right, final plug.
Everyone subscribe to Simon.
Yep. How often do you upload,
what do you do on your channel?
I upload railway videos, blogs.
I even livestream as well, @SimOnTrains.
Okay, and you were at Britain's newest station
the other day, Weston? Yes.
Which I have not even been to yet.
And you went to Perry Barr, which is rebuilt?
Yes. I have not been there yet.
How many stations do you think you've got out at?
Like, overall? Ooh, that's a tough one.
I don't know. Over a thousand?
Could be. Okay, all right.
Links to Simon's channel and all his videos
down in the description, okay, right.
You know what we need to do now, don't we?
We need to walk to the end of the platform,
and see which, what's there.
Which is going to be nothing.
We have discovered this, by the way.
There's this square, metal structure,
with these sort of plastic, plant-pots type things.
Simon, I love how you're casually leaning on it.
What on earth do we think this is?
'Cause I don't know. I honestly don't know.
It could be a fake for a DOO miller,
or some CCTV screens.
So they're going to instal something--
And they don't know what they're gonna instal.
And they put up a barrier, but not...
It could just be a wrestling rink.
(laughs) It's a wrestling.
Do you want to get inside, Simon? (laughs)
And have a wrestle! (laughs)
You go in the blue corner.
And I'll go in the red corner.
I would go inside, but it's on video,
and I think we'd get in trouble, I don't know what,
I mean, it's just platform.
Just imagine, round one, ding, ding!
Fight! Fight, come here, fight.
No, I can't even. I know! (laughs)
Why is this here? (metal clanging)
I need to know!
(feet trudging)
Glass. (glass tapping)
The ends of the platform are very quiet,
but they're some of my favourite points of stations.
End of the platform.
We found something down here, underneath the railway.
Yes! Well, not good, though.
We discovered this, which is a--
Underpassage. There is an underpass,
under the station, which is a cut through,
from that side to this side.
It is strewn with litter. Yes.
I mean, you can't escape the fact
that it's a little bit-
Full of litter. Untidy.
There's a thumbnail.
Least-used passageway under a railway station (laughs)
with KFC boxes, is it a KFC box?
I don't know what, don't touch it!
No, Munchies. A Munchies, okay!
Some of you might know, Simon, you might know this.
I do a thing called geocaching.
You aware of geocaching? I've heard of it, yes.
Treasure hunt game, you go around, right?
Geocaching did this brilliant thing called,
cash-in, trash out events, CITO,
where a whole bunch of people, they meet up,
and they go to an area, usually an area out in the woods,
or something, and they find the caches,
and then they take trash with them.
Honestly, right now, if we weren't about
to get the train back to Sheffield,
I would go down the shop, buy a black bag--
And just clean all this up.
And some Marigold Gloves and pick up all the,
we've got to beep this out,
pick up all the (silence) that's here,
then we clean, I have a genuine, burning desire,
to want to tidy up the passageway.
Maybe we should do that, in further Least Used videos,
just to bring black bags, and pick up any rubbish I see.
It could be a new feature of Least Used!
Least Used Trash Out!
LUTO. (laughs)
(shoes trudging)
Right, Simon, some people have turned up.
We're still getting the echo.
There's one, there's three other passengers.
A fourth passenger has just arrived.
So there's six people
here? So there's six of us,
that's doing well!
That's like almost half in one day.
Here comes the train, it's 195012,
and we're gonna get the train back to Sheffield,
and go home.
(train rumbling into station)
(train beeping)
So I have been Geoff, thanks for watching,
please do-- (laughs)
(laughs) No, we'll leave it in!
Take two, go again!
I have been Geoff, thanks for watching,
please do press Subscribe.
Also, plug to SimOnTrains' channel.
Thank for everybody for watching, see you see.
And bring a black bag next time, we'll pick up rubbish.
Bye! Bye!
(exciting electronic music)