Customers on Great Anglia’s Intercity services between Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester and London will be unable to reserve seats on trains for a period of six months, while the operator prepares to introduce new trainsets on the line.
The firm has announced that seat reservations will be suspended “for a period of around six months from Saturday July 13, 2019”.
It said that it had made the decision “to prevent confusion or misunderstandings “, as there will be a period when both the existing and new train stock will be operating, with different seating reservation systems.
The new trains are being built by Swiss firm Stadler, and feature a café-bar, as well as a first class seating area (unlike on the forthcoming new Stansted Express trainsets, also operated by Greater Anglia).
The new trainsets are longer, and will offer plug and USB sockets, air conditioning, free wifi and improved passenger information screens.
They will replace the current slam-door trains operating between Norwich and London Liverpool Street.
Greater Anglia said that because “the seating configuration inside the carriages on the new trains and the lettering on the outside is going to be different to the current trains, the seat reservations will be suspended until all the old carriages have been removed from service and all the new trains are running in their place”.
The new trains are currently undergoing safety and performance tests, and the first are expected to come into service this summer, although no specific date has yet been set.
Commenting on the news Greater Anglia’s Business Readiness Director, Andrew Goodrum, said:
“The new trains coming into service is really exciting, but we wanted to avoid any mix ups with reservations while the two fleets are swapped over.
“For example, if a passenger reserved their seat in advance, the reservation would be made for a seat in one of the current older trains. By the time they travel, this could have been swapped to one of the new trains, where all the seats will be different, meaning that they would not be able to find their reservation.
“The new trains are much longer than our existing fleet so getting a seat during the transition won’t be a problem.
“Once the old trains are removed from service our seat reservations system will be reinstated, but during the transition phase people will be able to get used to the new trains and familiarise themselves with the layout.”
Greater Anglia is in the process of replacing all of its existing train stock with brand new trains, including 58 made by Stadler and 111 made by Bombardier in Derby. The rollout is expected to take around two years.
