Covid slashed rail journeys by 80 per cent in the North West last year - the lowest recorded in nearly 30 years

Rail journeys in the North West plummeted by nearly 80 per cent during the peak of the pandemic.

Trips made by train from the North West to other regions, meanwhile, fell even further, to just 15.6 per cent of pre-pandemic times, an indication that restrictions did stop most people travelling to other parts of the country by public transport.

A new report from the Office of Rail Regulation shows passengers in the North West made a total of 30.6m journeys in the financial year 2020-21, just 21.1 per cent of those made the previous year.

This is the lowest number of journeys recorded in this 'time series', which began in 1995-96.

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There were 24.4m journeys made within the region, for example from Manchester to Liverpool, between April 2020 and April 2021.

That is just 23.1 per cent of the 105m journeys made in 2019-20.

Meanwhile, journeys from the North West to other regions, like Yorkshire or London, fell from 40m in 2019-20 to 6.3m, an 84 per cent drop.

Most of these journeys were made to or from Yorkshire and the Humber (28%), London (23%), the West Midlands (16%), or the East Midlands (11%).

Of the five sub-regions in the North West, most journeys, 3.4m, were made from Greater Manchester.

The report reads: "There were some small methodological adjustments in 2020-21.

"Nevertheless, most of the difference can be explained by the restrictions on non-essential travel during the pandemic, which resulted in average journey lengths falling by 16.1 per cent in 2020-21 compared with 2019-20."

Another report shows that passengers are now returning to the railways, but not in the same numbers as before Covid struck.

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