Furious scenes have erupted with passengers left stranded at Oldfield Park and other stations, unable to board packed carriages.

The problems have arisen over the past week since the introduction of a new timetable for services between London and Bath and across Wiltshire and Somerset.

Extra staff were called to Oldfield Park station yesterday and commuters were held back from boarding the 7.31am Cardiff-bound service for the third time in as many days.

People had arrived extra early after 40 passengers were left behind or greatly delayed on Monday morning.

Titus Jennings, of Englishcombe Lane, who uses the service every day to travel to Bristol, said: "Monday was absolute hell. We were like sardines. We literally spent the entire journey timing when to breathe in and out. It's not just the fact people we were late for work; it's a safety issue.

"They are stopping the high speed trains at Oldfield Park and Keynsham but you aren't notified until you get here. I pay £25.10 for a weekly return. That works out at roughly £10 an hour for a service. If I pay someone £10 an hour for a job I expect it to be done properly."

Another passenger John Dunn said the situation was ridiculous and the worst he had seen in 18 years of using the trains.

"People will be forced to use their cars because public transport is simply not adequate," he said.

"Words have certainly been exchanged all week but the staff are agreeing with us and handing out complaints forms."

Passengers travelling to Bath from Montpelier on the Severn Beach Line have also been affected as have commuters from Frome and Trowbridge.

A Trowbridge to Bath service on Saturday is said to have left around 100 people stranded at the station because it was already full.

Trowbridge town councillor Graham Hedley, who tried to board the train in the county town, said: "The vast majority of the people on the platform were left behind feeling very angry and very cold."

Cllr Hedley had his ticket refunded by staff at the station who had given up issuing new tickets because of the volume of people already waiting to board trains.

"May I suggest that this reduction in carriages and services will not only lead to overcrowding but will also, at first, lead to many people being left behind on a regular basis," he said.

"This will, fairly quickly, lead to a great many people leaving the rail transport system and getting back into their cars - an interesting green policy."

First Great Western regional manager Andrew Griffiths put the issues down to "technical teething problems" and said he hoped they would be resolved as soon as possible.

"We are very concerned that people have been left behind and understand that Oldfield Park station is one of the worst affected," he said.

"For the first few days of the new timetable we have been monitoring the problems that have arisen.

"However, we only have a finite number of trains for the morning services so it's a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"I would like to assure passengers that we are looking into the problems and are trying to make sure that all services run as efficiently as possible.

"We have provided a bus service for Keynsham passengers travelling to Bristol but of course to do this at Oldfield Park would be more difficult," he said.

However, David Redgewell, of the south west branch of campaign group Transport 2000, said the Department of Transport had a lot to answer for.

He has urged MP Don Foster to take up the case and appeal for more rolling stock and funds to improve transport services across the region.

He said: "We need to go directly to the top. These people need to get real. They are running a fantasy service.

"Bath is a World Heritage Site and we deserve the type of service every other European economy has.

"Oldfield Park is crucial to the Western Riverside Development.

"There are, of course, a lot of concerns about the trains becoming like cattle wagons."