There was an increase of more than one million people using Transport for Wales trains in 2023.

A study by West Somerset Railway analysed fresh data from the Office of Rail and Road 'Passenger rail usage, October to December 2023' report and discovered a 19 per cent increase in passenger journeys on TfW Rail during the last quarter of the year.

TfW Rail served seven million people between October and December 2023 - a rise from 5.9 million during the same period of the previous year.

Scotland, England, and Wales experienced a 20 per cent increase in their rail services overall during this timeframe.

417 million rail passenger journeys were made, compared to 348 million in the previous year.

The train operator with the greatest increase in passenger journeys was the Elizabeth Line with a 40 per cent rise, followed by Avanti West Coast with 38 per cent increase and ScotRail at 34 per cent.

At the bottom of the list was Heathrow Express with only a 5 per cent increase, and both c2c and London North Eastern Railway experienced a slightly higher rise of 6 per cent.

However, the increasing passenger numbers are still short of reaching pre-pandemic levels.

There was a 9.5 per cent decrease compared with the same quarter in 2019, where 461 million journeys were made.

Samantha White from West Somerset Railway shared her thoughts on the data.

She said: "It is fantastic to see these incredible rises of rail passenger journeys across Great Britain.

"Despite figures not yet matching pre pandemic levels, it is really encouraging to see that the amount of people using trains continue to rise close to how they were before the pandemic."