A railway for you - It's happening
It's an exciting time for our region's railways. We're in the process of completing a major transformation across the network, with a £1.4 billion investment in improvements to our services. That means new trains, more frequent services, more capacity and better punctuality and reliability. It has also led to faster journey times on some routes.
You've told us what you want from your railway. And we're responding. The roll out of our new trains means our services have been completely transformed, revitalised and regenerated. Meanwhile, we’re making other improvements too. Here are a few more details about the upgrades we’re delivering:
New trains and more seats
We’re investing in an entire fleet of new trains, with their introduction now almost complete. All services across the Greater Anglia network are now switched over to new train operation. The new trains are all longer than the trains they replaced, with more seats, and they more reliable too. Most of the fleet is made up of electric trains, but for the regional routes where there’s mostly no overhead power, our new, more energy efficient, diesel/electric bi-mode trains provide the flexibility to operate on all areas of the network and switch from one power source to the other as necessary, using electric power where available and changing easily to diesel where appropriate. Our new trains order also included provision for increases in passenger numbers, so we have a few more new trains to arrive, even though we are already operating every service with a new train. We expect the full fleet of 191 trains (that’s 1043 carriages) to all be with us within the next 12 months.
Faster and better services
We've already reduced journey times by around 5 minutes on many Norwich to London services, with many services speeded up by another couple of minutes from June 2024, plus one even faster service each way between Norwich and London scheduled for just under 1 hour 40 minutes. The new intercity, Stansted Express, and regional bi-mode trains have more carriages and seats than the trains they replaced, and the roll out of new suburban trains has also provided thousands of extra seats for weekday commuters to and from London.
Some timetable improvements, such as the Norwich to Stansted services, have been delivered and we'll also be looking at future opportunities for other service improvements - where there is the potential demand and where the necessary rail infrastructure is in place to facilitate them.
Better performance
The introduction of new trains has already led to better performance across our network. Annual punctuality is now at historically high levels – over 94% under the long-standing Public Performance Measure (measuring arrival time at destination) and also over 94% on the more demanding “Time to 3” measure which measures arrival time at every station served by each service. We are fully focused on maintaining, and wherever possible improving further, our performance standards and delivering an even more consistent service.
And that's not all...
There are many other improvements to look forward to, including new station shops and cafés, as well as more car and cycle parking spaces.
As part of our commitment to updating you on progress, we prepare a customer report. The most recent one is provided here.