People made more rail journeys in 2004 than for 45 years, figures show.
A growth in train trips during the last nine years has helped boost the travel statistics.
On the Brighton to London line alone, passengers made 1,537,756 more journeys than in 1995, when 1,800,720 trips were made, taking the total this year to 3,338,476. This was an 85 per cent increase.
A total of 1.05 billion journeys were made on Britain's network this year. This is the highest number since 1959 and was four per cent up on the 2003 figure, the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) said.
The increase on last year means that more than one million extra journeys are now being made every week. Atoc director general George Muir said: "With nearly 1,400 new trains introduced this year alone and an additional 320 new timetabled services running in the new annual timetable, rail travel is attracting more passengers than in the late Fifties, when we had a much bigger rail network."
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