Barnstaple to Exeter overcrowding, September 2026

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Reports from the North Devon Line Promotion Group tell me that the 07:23 from Barnstaple to Exeter has so many passengers wanting to use it that there isn't room for them all, and coaches are being laid on direct from Barnstaple to Exeter Central to carry many of the student passengers who have planned to use the train.

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I have restrained myself from adding armchair comment from afar onto their social media - but I can't help seeing an irony in a "promotion group" having helped promote a service to the extent it is broken.

[REVUpminster]

Unless someone else is paying GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don't invest in the southwest.

[grahame]

Unless someone else is paying GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don't invest in the southwest.

But in the dying days (months, years) of a franchise / management contract, would not any company with shareholders take the same view of investment?

[IndustryInsider]

Unless someone else is paying GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don't invest in the southwest.

But in the dying days (months, years) of a franchise / management contract, would not any company with shareholders take the same view of investment?

Of course they would.

[Bob_Blakey]

If, as seems obviously to be the case, this overcrowding is associated with one particular service how difficult would it be to provide an adequate number of coaches to deal with the passenger demand?

A brief look at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) indicates that the service, 0612 from EXD^▸ (Exeter St Davids station ), is generally run with 2 x 150's or one of a 3-car 158, 165/1 or 166/2. Each of which provides, according to t'interweb, 294, 207, 276 or 288 seats respectively. I have no idea by how much the passenger count could be increased by adopting the Japanese approach to standing passengers!

Possible solutions  & Questions:
Recast early morning rolling stock allocations, cancelling a lightly used local service if such a thing exists, so that the 'out & back' service is run with 6 cars and seating capacity is increased to 441, 414, 552 or 576. Does the infrastructure permit 6 car trains? Does GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have enough early morning on-train staff to allow paired 165/166 services.

Run the service using an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan))! Are IET's even cleared over the Tarka^▸ (Branch line from Barnstaple to Exeter) Line? - the web computer says 'No'. A 5-Car 802/0 would be pointless as it only provides 326 seats (if 1st is binned); a 9-Car 802/1 - 647 seats - would do the business. But could it keep to the timetable?

Run an additional service roughly 30 minutes earlier or later, or possibly even both, which I guess should be doable with passes at Crediton and Eggesford, to spread the demand. Survey potential passengers to establish which train they would definitely have to use to get to Exeter at their required time and , if necessary, implement queueing at BNP^▸ (Barnstaple station (in the context of the railways)) to stop overcrowding - GWR must know the absolute number of pax^▸ (passengers) each type of stock can safely carry.

[TaplowGreen]

Run the service using an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan))! Are IET's even cleared over the Tarka^▸ (Branch line from Barnstaple to Exeter) Line? - the web computer says 'No'. A 5-Car 802/0 would be pointless as it only provides 326 seats (if 1st is binned); a 9-Car 802/1 - 647 seats - would do the business. But could it keep to the timetable?

That's just robbing Peter to pay Paul - IETs are already being pinched from other routes to run (for example) Bristol to Oxford services, resulting in shortforms elsewhere, I presume there is a finite supply or is there a magic train tree? (to go with the magic money tree?) 

Given the constant and dismal "more trains than usual in need of repair at the same time" excuse, maybe it just needs someone to extract the digit from the orifice when it comes to maintenance to make more units available?

I think GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are probably doing the right thing in laying on road transport - at least they're not just leaving people stranded - and surely someone could have foreseen that this service would be under exceptionally high demand during termtime?

[REVUpminster]

The 0722 from Barnstaple was meant to be, by now, a 175 five car train but that looks further away than ever.  A way was worked out to lock out one unit for some stops.

As for investment by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) in the south west; they have rebuilt Exeter Depot but that has an indirect effect on better services. They did spend money on Exeter Central because the staircases and ticket gates were a safety hazard, and new doors to the ticket hall at Paignton station untouched by the recent fire.

For twenty years they were reluctant to spend their own money in the Southwest.  The (I hate to say it) EU^» (European Union - about) kick started the half hour Paignton service. Government money through various agencies built the new stations and Okehampton line. GWR did run a Sunday summer service (it must have been safe) to Okehampton paid for by Devon County Council. GWR have not paid for the Newquay investment.

Here is an interview from the GWR strategy director that just mentions third party funding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-NLuAzRVXU&t=1287s

[REVUpminster]

There is one 175 running today 113 on mileage accumulation and is 80 minutes late at the moment.

There now seems to be a problem with brake applications after the sunflower problems; which incidentally never arose last December in those dark winter days of operation on the Newquay branch.

There is a definite problem between management, unions, and train crew. Will it all magically go away this December?

[Mark A]

*snip*
For twenty years they were reluctant to spend their own money in the Southwest.  The (I hate to say it) EU^» (European Union - about) kick started the half hour Paignton service. *snip*

I loved to see it. Also the EU in the south west, a poster from 2018:

[Image from here is not available to guests]

Edit: Postimages seems to have derailed, let's see if it comes back and the above image appears...

[Chris from Nailsea]

There is a definite problem between management, unions, and train crew. Will it all magically go away this December?

Of course it will: that's the whole point of re-nationalising the railways.

Pay attention, at the back of the classroom there! 

[grahame]

Looking from left field, I recall a heritage train running to Windemere.   And I learn from an Internet search that a Hastings Diesel unit visited Barnstaple on 25th June 2005 - https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/railtours/2005tarka - and presumably there's no real reason why one of those couldn't be hired out to the Tarka^▸ (Branch line from Barnstaple to Exeter) Line now that it has returned from Sheffield Park.

Loading might still be a problem - even with a six car Hastings unit, so many enthusiasts would be drawn that even at that length it might overload ...

[grahame]

There is a definite problem between management, unions, and train crew. Will it all magically go away this December?

Of course it will: that's the whole point of re-nationalising the railways.

Indeed the problems of the interactions between the interests of a private operating company and other parties WILL go away - there will be no private operating company any more.    Magic.  Of course, there will be a new management at the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) ... and what they do and how they do it is the $64,000 question

[TaplowGreen]

There is a definite problem between management, unions, and train crew. Will it all magically go away this December?

Of course it will: that's the whole point of re-nationalising the railways.

Pay attention, at the back of the classroom there! 

Yes, because those three groups always got on so well together under British Rail, didn't they! 

[IndustryInsider]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have not paid for the Newquay investment.

Why would they?

[Chris from Nailsea]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have not paid for the Newquay investment.

Why would they?

I verged on just adding a 'like' to IndustryInsider's post, but I then thought better of it: that would be too simplistic.

The fact of the matter is, with their commercial parent group First looking at re-nationalisation of their railways from December 2026, they are rather unlikely to spend anything they don't have to in the meantime ...

CfN^▸ (Chris from Nailsea, an administrator on this forum).