All of Greater Anglia’s routes in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and West Essex are now operated by brand new trains – as the company has reached another milestone in replacing all its old trains with new trains.
Trains into London Liverpool Street from Cambridge, Ely, Kings Lynn, Audley End, Stansted Airport, Harlow, Hertford East and Broxbourne are now all being run using Greater Anglia’s new longer state-of-the-art electric commuter trains.
The last old train on the route was taken out of service last week.
The company’s Stansted Express service between London and Stansted Airport switched over to new trains over 18 months ago, while the Norwich to Cambridge and Stansted Airport service started in December 2019 using the company’s new bi-mode trains powered by diesel and electricity.
All of Greater Anglia’s new trains are longer with more seats, air conditioning, plug and USB points, fast free wifi, and improved accessibility features including an accessible toilet on every train.
There are also dedicated cycle spaces on each new train and better passenger information including screens which show which part of the train have more seats available.
They are already improving the company’s reliability and punctuality.
The new trains are contributing to the company’s reduction in carbon, with many hi-tech green features including regenerative brakes which harness energy produced by braking and returns it to the power network and intelligent computer systems which save energy.
Later this month, a major project to make platforms at Hertford East, Ware and Broxbourne long enough for the new ten-carriage trains is due to complete its final stages, with a 17-day period of intensive works planned for between Saturday 13 to Monday 29 August.
Once complete, services on the busy Hertford East line will see a significant increase in seating capacity.
Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director, said: “We’re really pleased to reach this major milestone in the transformation of our train fleet to one comprising all new trains.
“Our West Anglia passengers now have new trains on every service, offering a much better and more comfortable travelling environment. They also enable us to deliver a more punctual, reliable, consistent and resilient service.
“It was always our aim to provide a real, positive step change in service quality for our customers and communities. That is now a reality for all our West Anglia, Stansted Express, intercity and regional customers and most travellers using our Great Eastern routes too.
“As we complete this £1.4 billion investment programme over the next year, we are making rail a high quality, reliable and convenient travel option for our region, as we recover from the pandemic and play our full part in meeting carbon reduction and net zero targets.”
The next stage of the new train roll out will see Greater Anglia’s remaining un-refurbished old trains still running in the rest of Essex replaced with brand new trains.
There will then be just 30 old trains left – all refurbished electric commuter trains with air conditioning and upgraded seating and interiors – on routes to Southend, Chelmsford, Braintree, Colchester, Clacton and Harwich.
These will gradually be replaced by new trains in the last months of 2022 and the first half of 2023, making the transformation complete.
So far Greater Anglia has taken delivery of 131 out of 191 brand new trains on order, with all brand new trains also already in operation on its Norwich-London intercity route and all regional routes.
Photo credit: Greater Anglia
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