When a train was halted outside Exeter St Davids station on Monday, rail staff leapt to one conclusion: there had been a violent incident on board.
“Someone will have kicked off,” one staff member said. “It happens all the time. My boss got head-butted recently.”
On this occasion, they were wrong – but their assumption told a tale. Figures released late last month showed the number of reported assaults on Great Britain’s railways had risen by a fifth, to a record high of almost 25,000 incidents in a year.
Staff in particular have felt increasingly under threat. While the total numbers reported by the Office of Rail and Road in 2025-26 covered threats, verbal abuse, and contact that might not have resulted in any injury, they included nearly 2,500 physical assaults on workers – an average of about seven every day.
Their unions said the numbers were horrendous, but unsurprising: the RMT and TSSA unions have campaigned for more staffed stations and policing, after the number of British Transport Police (BTP) officers fell by more than 10% between 2024 and 2026.
Many rail staff wear body cams to record and log incidents of violence. “I think it’s so sad that we have those,” said Dave*, a rail worker in south-west England. However, after 20 years in the job, he said: “The threats, the abuse, the violence we see is off the scale.”
Drink and drugs play a part, he added. “We’re also seeing a lot more people with mental health issues. If you’re out on the street you can steer clear, but if you’re on a train or a platform you can’t. Our workplaces are becoming more and more dangerous.”
‘Now it’s mostly bad days’
Steve, a guard based in the north of England, was punched in the head by a passenger: “It was my last train of the night. I’ve had to look away to see the door controls and the next thing I know, I’m waking up on the platform.”
Every guard gets verbally abused on a daily basis, he said, with behaviour worsening since the pandemic: “Now it’s mostly bad days, and you’re searching for good days, where nothing’s said, or nothing happens. The amount of times we’re getting threatened now with physical attacks, even when you walk through the train and say, ‘Tickets, please.’”
Even those working on the infrastructure can be on the receiving end. One rail contractor, Liam, based in Somerset, said: “We’re there working on the tracks and we sometimes get sworn at and even spat at. It’s just a minority, but somehow they think we’re responsible for slow journey times, cancelled trains. We’re in bright orange so we’re easy targets.”
The railway is by no means unique: bus drivers have faced repeated abuse and threats, as the Unite union has highlighted. Transport for London staff working on roads are issued with “spit kits”, or forensic saliva collection tubes, so common is that form of assault.
Violence against women and girls is of particular concern; at the Labour conference this week, the minister for buses and local transport, Simon Lightwood, described it as a “national emergency”.
Speaking alongside him, the mayor for the north-east, Kim McGuinness, said that as well as measures such as more staffing, lighting and CCTV, a crucial point for women was “knowing that if you raise an alarm something is going to be done. It’s a choice to use public transport or not … if you’re accepting 50% of the population don’t feel safe, that’s not good.”
The rail industry and police say some of the sharp rise in recorded assaults on passengers – up 36% last year – is due to greater reporting, including using discreet text messaging to the BTP.
But while many more incidents are now reported, plenty are not.
‘Tearful, angry and scared’
Emily, 24, was travelling home on a late-night train between Glasgow and Edinburgh last year when a stranger made a beeline for her. “He immediately tried to start a conversation and wouldn’t give up even when I showed no interest. He was asking what I’d been up to, whether I had a boyfriend, complimenting my outfit, and then it escalated really quickly.”
The man began rubbing Emily’s upper thigh and asking her intrusive questions about her sex life. “I froze and didn’t know what to do. I looked around but everyone else was oblivious. I tried to move but I was on the inside seat and he just grabbed my leg harder and leaned in towards me,” she said.
She managed to manoeuvre out of the seat and away from the man, who “shouted aggressively and called [her] a bitch”. Other passengers looked round but did not intervene. She moved to another carriage and arrived home shaken but decided not to report the incident.
“I wanted to just move on,” Emily said. “But I never used to think twice about getting on a train by myself at night and now I’m much more nervous.”
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Edward, a trans man, was travelling home to Staffordshire with his partner, a trans woman, after a weekend in Wales. On a packed train from Aberystwyth, a man began loudly making homophobic comments and became confrontational.
“Normally in that situation I just walk on, but I physically couldn’t, we were so crammed,” Edward said. He finally yelled back, repeating: “You’re shouting homophobic abuse in front of your children.”
A railway worker eventually intervened and told the assailant and his family to move to another carriage. Edward chose not to report the incident to police, dissatisfied with the response to previous incidents. He now tries to avoid public transport: “I felt tearful, angry and scared afterwards.”
‘It’s put me off trains’
A fraction of passenger reports end up with arrest or prosecution. Last year, Sam was travelling north from London on a train packed with football supporters. As she tried to reach her reserved seat, a drunken man confronted her and pushed her backward.
She instinctively pushed him back. “Then I thought, what have you done?” she said. Other men began throwing beer cans while one held her by her rucksack. “I was being pushed and shoved … they were throwing punches as well.”
Amid the assault, one man deliberately grabbed her breasts. “I realised: ‘Oh no, I’m trapped on here with them for the next two hours’,” she said. “There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to get off.”
Two BTP officers on the train got through to take a statement from Sam. The investigation was later dropped after police were unable to identify her assailant.
The experience had a big impact, leaving her “not doing a lot of things I used to do. It’s put me off trains massively. I think if faced with a train like that, I would just not board it.”
The BTP assistant chief constable Ian Drummond-Smith said: “We will never tolerate violence or abuse directed at passengers or staff on the railway, and anyone committing these crimes can expect a robust response from us.”
He noted that when staff had body-worn recording, police brought offenders to justice in about 85% of incidents. “Anyone who witnesses violence or abuse on the railway should report it to us by texting 61016, or call 999 in an emergency,” he said.
The Department for Transport said the rise in assaults was “deeply concerning and unacceptable”. It has awarded a £63m increase in BTP funding by 2028-29, allowing more than 200 additional officers to be recruited, and investments in better CCTV and body-worn video. Dozens of new BTP officers will be specialised in tackling violence and intimidation against women and girls.
* Names have been changed