National Express East Anglia (NXEA) has launched a new timetable offering 20% extra seat capacity on the West Anglia lines. Under the new timetable, which comes into place on 11 December, the train operator will add 5,500 more seats at peak travel times.
The new services will utilise NXEA’s 30 brand new Class 379 trains, first introduced this summer. On top of this £155 million fleet investment, the company has ploughed an additional £30m in lengthening platforms, increasing car parking capacity and adding new carriage washers.
From 11 December, all Stansted Express services will be operated by the new Class 379 trains, with services running every 15 minutes. Three peak services between Cambridge and Liverpool Street will be operated by new trains and formed of 12 carriages, while NXEA is also promising faster journey times from Cambridge, Hertford East and Edmonton Green to London, half-hourly services between Bishops Stortford and Stratford, two morning peak services from Hertford East to Stratford, and new services from Broxbourne to London.
In addition, some services on the Chingford, Enfield, Hertford East/Cheshunt routes will include extra seats with trains increased from four to eight carriages.
Andrew Chivers, NXEA’s managing director said; “The timetable improvements for our West Anglia route customers completes the £185m investment through our ‘Service Improvement Plan’ to increase seating capacity on our network in partnership with the Department for Transport, by providing 188 new and additional vehicles for East Anglia including 120 new carriages on our Stansted Express and West Anglia route.
“This means we will be providing around 11,000 more seats for our customers using services into London Liverpool Street on our West Anglia and Great Eastern mainline routes in the December 2011 timetable, an increase of almost 20% in the past year.”
