A classy move from Greater Anglia

Greater Anglia has said that first-class tickets on West Anglia routes between Cambridge and London Liverpool are going to be a thing of the past.

The reason is that increasing numbers of services on the routes are operated by Greater Anglia’s new state-of-the-art trains, which have been built without dedicated first-class seating areas.

All the company’s new trains are longer, with more seats, plug and USB sockets, fast free wifi, air conditioning and better passenger information screens.

They also have improved facilities for disabled customers.

In the next year, passengers will see Greater Anglia replacing more and more older trains with new modern vehicles, running on routes to London Liverpool Street from Cambridge, Bishops Stortford, the Lea Valley line, Hertford East and between Meridian Water and Stratford.

Both Greater Anglia’s Stansted Express services between London Liverpool Street and Stansted Airport and its Norwich/Cambridge to Stansted Airport services are already operated exclusively by brand new trains, offering high-quality standard seating only.

From Sunday, first-class seating on Greater Anglia’s old trains on the West Anglia routes will be declassified, and this type of ticket will no longer be sold for these services.

Customers with a first-class season ticket on one of the affected routes can change it over to a Standard Class ticket without penalty or apply for a pro-rata refund.

Anyone who has purchased a first-class ticket for travel on or after Sunday 12 December on one of the affected routes is entitled to a full refund of the difference between the first-class fare and the equivalent standard-class ticket without an administration fee.

Martin Moran, Greater Anglia commercial, customer service and train presentation director, said: “Our new trains give everybody a first-class experience, and we are excited to be rolling out more of them across Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, West Essex and east London.

“When we ordered our new trains, in 2016, customers told us one of their top priorities was to get a seat, so we designed the new trains to have more seats. By not including first-class seating areas, we were able to fit in more seats for everyone.”

The new trains also have many more environmental features, including regenerative braking, which puts electricity back into the network during braking and a lighter, more aerodynamic chassis, making trains more energy efficient.

The only route on the Greater Anglia network where first-class seating and tickets will continue to be available is the intercity route between Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester and London Liverpool Street, where services are operated by brand new intercity trains, built with two first-class carriages.

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