Students 'crammed' on trains prompt extra buses

Overcrowding on railway lines popular with college students and school pupils has prompted a train firm to lay on extra buses.

Students on the train between Barnstaple and Exeter say they have been "crammed like sardines" on the train with claims of staff telling young people to leave the train and take the bus.

Rail passenger groups say a shortage of rolling stock in south-west England is affecting services more widely with extra buses also being laid on between Plymouth and Liskeard.

Great Western Railway (GWR) said students had been offered the chance to take buses which have been introduced because of increasing demand - particularly for young people travelling to Exeter College.

On a drizzly morning at Barnstaple station Sky, from Braunton, and her friend Sofia, from Westward Ho!, are not looking forward to the daily challenge of trying to get a seat on the 07:22 train service from Barnstaple to Exeter - known as the Tarka Line.

Sofia said: "My dad spent over £300 for a monthly term pass but then you're still being kicked off the train.

"So you then just have to go onto the coach after spending that much money."

She added: "It's just a bit of a scam really."

Sky said she had to get a train from Braunton at 06:50 to get to Barnstaple in time for the connecting train.

She said: "Sometimes you get kicked off the train then you have to wait an hour for the next one."

Rick Yeo, whose daughter gets the morning train, said: "I would have thought they could have managed themselves a bit better and maybe put another carriage on."

The Tarka line has several stops along the way including at Kings Nympton where Agnes, who has just started at Exeter College, boards the train.

She said: "As soon as I get on I don't even look for a seat anymore because there are no seats and we're all stood inbetween the carriages because that's really the only standing space there is.

"The service is extremely poor bearing in mind we pay so much money for it when in areas like London it's either heavily discounted or entirely free - I don't understand why we pay such a high price for something that's so unreliable and unpleasant."

She said the trains home at the end of the day were "even worse" with everyone leaving Exeter "crammed like sardines".

She said: "It's just crazy - everyone is way up against the train, shoving and barging just to try and get a seat - sometimes they say to people you can't get on because there's not enough room so it makes people even more hectic because they want to get back home."

Exeter College has grown in recent years and about two thirds of its students come from outside the city with some coming from as far away as Dorset or Somerset.

Barnstaple does have its own higher education college, Petroc, which merged with Exeter College in January.

Exeter College offers travel passes to students which are subsidised and set on a sliding scale depending on household income.

A spokesperson for Exeter College said: "We have a brilliant relationship with Great Western Railway and have been eagerly awaiting the rollout of the new larger trains for the Tarka Line, which we believe will be in operation in the coming months.

"We hope that this change, alongside other rail improvement works, gives the line greater resilience, especially during the winter months."

There was major disruption on the Tarka line in the autumn of 2025 due to flooding.

The college added: "We are disappointed by the recent disruption, as train travel is critical for our college community. We will continue to engage positively and proactively with GWR."

Matt Barnes, head of strategic development at GWR, said the use of trains into Exeter was overall a "success story" with demand continuing to grow.

The railway boss said this was the first year GWR had put on buses - partly to try to ensure passengers at stops along the line would be able to board the train.

GWR has had to cancel some services in Devon and Cornwall due to technical problems with a second-hand Class 175 fleet it has taken on but Barnes said this was not directly related to the problems on the Barnstaple line and between Plymouth and Liskeard.

He said: "The 175s are a separate issue that primarily affect specific services.

"What we have here is that story of demand growing more quickly than we can provide extra supply.

"We've got an uplift this year in the number of college students and the number of people travelling into Exeter and that's why we've put in place a plan ahead of time to try and provide more support to those getting into the city."

Barnes said staff had not ordered students off trains and onto buses but said there could have been some misunderstandings.

GWR had also put on an extra bus at peak times on the line between Plymouth and Liskeard but that service is being removed because of lack of use.

David Northey is the chairman of the North Devon Line Rail Promotion Group, which campaigns for a better service between Exeter and Barnstaple, and said being offered a bus when you have paid for a train meant "getting a second-class service".

He said: "The problem is rolling stock - it's capacity on the trains so we've seen three-car trains this week being really overcrowded. We were due to have five-car trains but some technical issues have caused a problem with that."

He said having more of the Class 175s in service would enable GWR to "ease the congestion" but they would not be active until "later this year".

He said: "In the longer term it's about us having new rolling stock rather than having second best all the time - all we've had in the south west is cascaded rolling stock for our regional services.

"What's important is that strategic thinking about how are we coping with growth, how are we going to deal with new homes and further growth in education - we need the rolling stock to cater for that growth."

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