Greater Anglia warns to only travel if essential ahead of Storm Franklin

Published: 7:41 PM February 20, 2022

Another storm is causing the cancellation of trains across East Anglia.

Greater Anglia is warning passengers to only travel on Monday if their journey is absolutely essential.

The company will be running a very reduced service which could be disrupted by Storm Franklin at short notice.

Network Rail has kept the 50mph speed limit in place from Storm Eunice to ensure the railway runs safely.

Because of this, fewer trains will be running and journey times will be longer.

Should more trees or debris fall on train lines or overhead wires, journeys could be disrupted even further.

Trains will be running hourly between:

• Norwich and Colchester
• Ipswich and London Liverpool Street
• Colchester and London Liverpool Street
• Clacton and Colchester
• Walton-on-the-Naze and Thorpe-le-Soken
• Harwich and Manningtree
• Marks Tey and Sudbury (if line reopens following Storm Eunice)
• Norwich and Cambridge
• Norwich and Great Yarmouth
• Norwich and Lowestoft

Trains will be running every two hours between

• Ipswich and Cambridge
• Ipswich and Felixstowe
• Ipswich and Lowestoft
• Ipswich and Peterborough
• Norwich and Sheringham

In the event of any additional service disruption Greater Anglia will do its best to provide a rail replacement bus service but it is likely to be limited and subject to disruption on the roads due to storm damage.

Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director, said: “We are very sorry to inconvenience customers again, just three days after Storm Eunice which caused such terrible disruption across our network due to the ferocity of the winds.

“We really would urge people to only travel if your journey is absolutely essential, as we saw on Friday that journeys can be severely delayed if trees block the tracks and overhead wires get tangled or obstructed.

“We don’t issue a message discouraging people from travelling lightly.

“We will do our utmost to keep our reduced service running and to keep passengers up to date with any developments throughout the day.

“Please remember that you can change your ticket, travel on another day or apply for a refund free of charge.”