Published on: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Last updated: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Football fans are advised to travel early and be prepared for long queues and busy trains with two big Premier League fixtures likely to affect Greater Anglia stations and trains tomorrow.
West Ham v Norwich and Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea both kick off at 7.45pm on Wednesday 12 January and are close to sell-out fixtures.
Fans travelling by train should check train times, as Greater Anglia is currently running a revised timetable. The company has put in some extra services to help fans get to and from the matches.
The 17.54 London Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport and 18.13 Liverpool Street to Cambridge, will both make an additional stop at Northumberland Park.
In addition, three extra services have been added to the timetable: the 17.35 Broxbourne to Liverpool Street, 18.26 Liverpool Street to Broxbourne and 19.05 Broxbourne to Liverpool Street.
Existing services in the revised timetable should be sufficient for fans to travel back from the Spurs games.
An extra Norwich train has been arranged for fans attending the West Ham v Norwich match, leaving Liverpool Street at 22.47 and Stratford at 22.55, calling at Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Stowmarket, Diss and Norwich.
Customers travelling to the Spurs game are advised that a new queuing system will be in operation at Tottenham Hale station, with a single queue for both Transport for London and Greater Anglia services in operation.
Stations expected to busy are Northumberland Park, Tottenham Hale, Stratford and Norwich, although other stations such as Ipswich, Chelmsford and Colchester could also be busy due to fans travelling to the matches.
Martin Moran, Greater Anglia’s commercial, customer service and train presentation director, said: “We are expecting our trains and stations to be busy when these key football matches take place. We will be running long trains with many seats, and we’d encourage passengers to use the full length of trains and platforms.
“Spurs fans should bear in mind that there will be one queue to get into the newly-refurbished Tottenham Hale station, as opposed to separate queues for Greater Anglia and TfL services, so they should allow a little extra time for their return journey too.
“Our staff will do their best to make sure all football fans’ journeys go as smoothly as possible.”
Fans are advised to buy their train tickets in advance if possible to avoid queues at the stadium and are reminded about discounts such as GroupSave which gives a third off for people travelling in groups of three or more.
This advice also applies on Sunday 16 January, with two further matches – West Ham v Leeds at 2pm and Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal at 4.30pm.
Greater Anglia has a range of measures in place to keep people safe while travelling including good ventilation with either air conditioning which sucks in fresh air every six to nine minutes or opening windows, as well as doors which open at stations.
The company is continuing with enhanced cleaning and sanitisation paying particular attention to high touch areas such as push buttons and grab handles.
The company is thanking the high number of customers who are wearing face coverings on trains and stations, which is once again mandatory.