Great Western Coffee Shop

A revamp is on the way to improve conditions for the 275,000 passengers a year who use one of the city^s busiest unstaffed rail stations.

Exeter^s Digby and Sowton, on the Exeter to Exmouth line, is facing increasing pressure with new homes being built in and around the city.

Now rail bosses have announced a two-year scheme, starting next month, which will double shelter space for waiting passengers, give paths a makeover with better surfacing and lighting, and add a new footpath to serve the Exeter Chiefs^ rugby ground at Sandy Park. The cycle network to stations will be improved and storage facilities added.

Exeter City Council is hoping to resite the footpath from the station to the park and ride bus terminal for the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital to make it safer.

Melanie Harvey, line manager for First Great Western, said a replacement bus service would operate for four weekends in November while an upgrade to the track was completed further down the line. Trains would still run to Digby.

The Exeter to Exmouth line carries 1.5m passengers a year. Digby and Sowton station already receives  275,000 passengers a year, and the area is due to receive more than 4,000 more houses in the next few  years ^ the first already being built at Newcourt.

Longer trains will need expensive longer platforms down the line, and extra stops at new stations cannot be worked into present schedules without track improvements.

Last time I used the station, the bus left about 10 seconds after the train arrived.  Luckily I wasn't using the bus but it doesn't seem very intergated transport.

Train - First Group,  Bus - Stagecoach, or is that too cynical? ;)

Too cynical, maybe - but surely it is perverse for any bus to leave a railway station just as a train arrives?

As it is, while some of those train passengers will hang around for the next bus, others will make alternative arrangements - a loss of revenue to the bus company.