Had a great day out on the South Devon Railway with my elderly mum. All the staff we encountered were really friendly. Train was comfortable and to be met by the owl from the nearby sanctuary at Totnes was a real treat. Only slight niggle was the lack of disabled parking spaces at Buckfastleigh ( only 3 spaces available. ) All in all a nice day out, would recommend.

Took our family of 5 to the polar express experience in early December. The set up is good, parking attendants are organised and once out the car you go into the polar express village area I suppose you would call it, this was okay, not a lot to do for the kids whilst waiting but they do am have a well stocked if slightly overpriced gift shop. The experience starts in a large gazebo with actresses starting to tell the story (the actors/actresses are superb, except Santa more later). Then you walk to the platform and the conductor (actor) continues the story and you get onto the polar express as it pulls into the station with some fake snow. On the train more actresses bring the story alive and probably the best actor was hobo Joe, he was totally in character and I thought he did a superb job. Then you have hot chocolate and cookies, the conductor punches the tickets with a smiley face and the story continues where you reach the North Pole which is a station set up to look like a North Pole I think. You dont leave the train and then it reverses up the line but this time with Santa. We were at one end of the coach opposite to where Santa started, so by the time he came to us he was either pressed for time or lost interest. His elf handed out bells to us. Now if your familiar with the Polar Express story (I’ve personally watched 100’s of times, it’s a year round film for my kids😩) then you’ll know that those who don’t believe in Santa (adults) can’t hear the bell, my kids were asking me can you hear the bell and I was pretending not to hear it, santa then gave me another one and I said no I cant hear it, santa looked puzzled and I said it’s in the story that those who don’t believe can’t hear it. His response was i don’t know🤣 this didn’t ruin the experience but nor did it enhance it, but you would of thought anyone involved would know the story! Overall it was a nice experience but didn’t live up to the hype, for £160 I think it’s probably £60 overpriced.

A little disappointed. Visited on Easter day, on way back from a day trip in Cornwall. Advised no entry as we did not have 'wristbands'. Staff made no suggestions as to how or where to purchase wristbands. Went to shop where we made a purchase, spent nearly £30 on food in cafe. Went to look at a diesel loco along by cafe, chased down the path by staff asking if we had wristbands!, told no access without one. Asked same abrupt staff member about how to purchase tickets for miniature train, was told they are run by an independent organisation. Asked another two members of staff, one who eventually told us that today this was included in the price of the wristband. Volunteers are great but need managing and informing. Website is not very informative, just says with your train ticket you can also enjoy the rare breeds farm and otters and butterflies. We won't rush back.

We included the dining experience with our trip. I must say we found the experience very rushed. Leaving at 12 10 and arriving back at 1 30 was just not long enough. The staff were brilliant but were obviously on a time scale. The meal was fine but needed to request things to accompany the meal. Items on menus were not available, but was replaced by alternative choices. I did expect a little more for the cost of £118 for 2. I say again the time scale meant that being so rushed you had no time to sit back and enjoy the train journey.

We had afternoon tea on the train, when shown to our table the first thing I noticed was the stained table cloth and stained, dirty cups one of which had a sticky substance on the inside of the cup. We asked for a fresh cup, they washed out the cup and brought it back. On mentioning the stained table cloth the waitress shrugged and said that was from the previous diners. No attempt to rectify this. The afternoon tea itself was no better, the sandwiches hardly had any filling and the bread was starting to curl and go hard. The train window was smeary and needed a clean. There should have been someone checking the tables were in order prior to customers boarding and they need to find another supplier for the afternoon tea. If it hadn't been a birthday treat for my husband I would have left as soon as I saw the disgusting table. The positive was the train journey, we had access to ride the train all day and did the journey to Totnes and sat in Edwardian carriage which was excellent . The staff were all lovely. I would do the train journey again but go somewhere else for afternoon tea!

Lovely railway we haven’t visited for over 10 years and as we were staying in Staverton for the weekend it gave us an ideal activity. Excellent locomotives and carriages and Staverton station itself has to be a contender for the most picturesque preserved railway station in the UK. Only one negative - the cafe at Buckfastleigh. It’s very inefficiently run with half a dozen teenage girls moving at snails pace and pulling silly faces at eachother rather than working and they only seem to be able to deal with one order at a time very very slowly, literally paint dries faster than they make a cup of coffee. I advise anyone alighting the train at Buckfastleigh who wants refreshments to go there immediately or you really are at risk of missing the train back to totnes an hour later - I got served faster than I would but still interminably slowly because people in front of me in the que gave up and left and surely this is lost revenue so it does need looking at.