The London and South Western Railway (LSWR) opened its Exeter Extension from Yeovil Junction on 19 July 1860 and its station at Queen Street in the city centre became the terminus for services from London Waterloo station, known as Exeter Queen Street.

Here the LSWR connected with the Exeter and Crediton Railway and over that line eventually reached Plymouth, Padstow, Bude, and Ilfracombe[4] Most trains to these destinations changed locomotives at Queen Street and many had carriages added or removed too.

A fire damaged the original wooden buildings on the westbound platform in 1927 and work on rebuilding the station started in 1931.

The train sheds were demolished and new brick buildings were officially opened on 1 July 1933 when the station was renamed Exeter Central.

[2] On 2 July 1984 the entrance from New North Road was reopened, and later a new ramped footbridge was installed to give direct access from there to the east end of both platforms.

[4] Sectorisation in the 1980s saw Exeter Central become the most westerly station managed by Network SouthEast but it was later transferred to Regional Railways sector which operated the services to Exmouth.

Despite these alterations the space was too small to handle all the locomotives working in and out of the station so a new maintenance depot was opened at Exmouth Junction in 1887.

The ticket office is placed in the original 1933 booking hall, which leads via a passageway to the covered footbridge that spans the tracks parallel to Queen Street.

At the far end of the platform a ramp leads up to another footbridge and another entrance, again on the south side of the line, from New North Road.

[6] Local services are provided by Great Western Railway on the Avocet Line from Exmouth to Exeter St Davids (from where they continue to Paignton), which run half-hourly; on the Tarka Line from Exeter Central to Barnstaple, which run hourly and as of May 2022 hourly services to Okehampton.

[3] The signals are interlocked so that trains cannot start from either St Davids or Central until their route is clear right through to their platform at the other station; a feature replicated from the days of steam locomotives with less power or brakes than today's diesels when it was undesirable for trains to come to a stand on this steeply graded section of line.