Published on: Tuesday, 12 December 2017
Last updated: Tuesday, 12 December 2017
There will be over 1,000 more train seats available for rail passengers heading to London for days out and shopping trips thanks to changes to Greater Anglia’s timetable, which starts on Sunday 10 December.
On the Norwich to London mainline, three additional services will start from Colchester and call at three key shopping destinations - Chelmsford, Stratford and London Liverpool Street.
The additional trains, which create a total of 1232 extra seats, will start empty at Colchester, rather than passengers having to join the already busy Intercity services from Norwich which have already called at Diss, Stowmarket, Ipswich and Manningtree before they reach Colchester passengers.
The additional trains will replace three Saturday morning intercity services which will no longer stop at Colchester or Chelmsford, creating more space on mainline services for passengers travelling from Norwich, Diss, Stowmarket, Ipswich and Manningtree.
Greater Anglia’s Managing Director, Jamies Burles, commented, “At our last timetable change in May we added over 100,000 seats a week to our timetable by hiring extra trains and I’m pleased that with these three additional services we are building on this and creating extra capacity for passengers travelling on the mainline on Saturdays, making a shopping trip or day out even more convenient and comfortable.”
Most other services remain unchanged, or have been slightly retimed when the new timetables begins.
However, passengers on the Marks Tey – Sudbury route should note that during the winter Bures becomes a ‘request-stop’ only. This means that the train will only call at Bures if there are passengers to be picked up or dropped off – passengers should inform the conductor if they wish to alight at the station.
There are some minor alterations to other services and passengers can check travel details via the website at: www.greateranglia.co.uk or pick-up a timetable from staffed stations.
Travellers are advised that during Christmas and the New Year, Network Rail will be carrying out improvement work. Passengers should check before they travel at greateranglia.co.uk/service-alterations or nationalrail.co.uk/journeyplanner.