But GWR seems to have overcrowding on many of its non London services, many of which have lots of walk up fares, and it seems to have no intention of trying to source extra capacity. How many months (years?) it will continue this overcrowding policy is anyones guess.
To be fair to GWR, there have been some capacity increases within the last few years.
5 coaches now regular on Cardiff-Pompey services (was previously rare to have anything above 3)
Half hourly service between Exeter-Paignton on the local services where as it used to be hourly with an additional shuttle Paignton-Newton Abbot
Predominantly 4 car 150s on Exmouth-Paignton, previously used to usually be 2 car 150 or 4 car pacer
Half hourly on the Severn Beach line, used to be 3tp2h
Plus 2 and 3 car 16x taking over a lot of the local work in the Bristol area from 2 car 150s which is a capacity increase
4 car Castles providing more journey opportunities between Cardiff/Bristol and Devon/Cornwall. Previously was XC with just a few random GWR services, with 2 car 150s usually operating the local Cardiff-Taunton and Plymouth-Penzance services
More IETs operating Swindon-Cheltenham as more through London services. Previously every other service was a 2 car DMU.
There is clearly more they can do but they’ve made a lot of improvements in the last few years!