Private company

Anglia Railways

Train operating company in the East of England

Anglia Railways was a British train operating company that operated the Anglia franchise in the East of England from January 1997 until March 2004; it was owned by GB Railways and later FirstGroup.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1997Founded1
86223 "Norwich Union" at Ipswich
Photo: Tutenkhamun Sleeping, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons4

Anglia Railways was a British train operating company that operated the Anglia franchise in the East of England from January 1997 until March 2004; it was owned by GB Railways and later FirstGroup.2

The story

The Anglia franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising to GB Railways; it commenced on 5 January 1997. In June 1998, Anglia Railways unveiled a turquoise and white livery. Prior to 1997, trains in the area were operated by British Rail sectors of InterCity, Regional Railways and Network SouthEast.

On 1 April 2004, operations passed to National Express East Anglia.

From Wikipedia’s article on Anglia Railways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Products and brands

Anglia Railways operated the following routes:

Inter-city services:

Great Eastern Main Line between London Liverpool Street, Ipswich and Norwich

Manningtree-Harwich, for boat trains between Liverpool Street and Harwich International.

Read the full text

Regional services:

Ely-Peterborough

Ipswich-Ely/Cambridge

Ipswich-Felixstowe

Ipswich-Lowestoft

London Crosslink

Norwich-Ely/Cambridge

Norwich-Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft

Norwich-Sheringham.

A franchise commitment was to increase the hourly London Liverpool Street-Norwich services to half-hourly. The half-hourly service was introduced in 2000 with some extended to Sheringham, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

With funding from the Strategic Rail Authority's Rail Partnership Funding, Anglia Railways introduced a new experimental service from the Great Eastern Main Line to Basingstoke, via the North London Line, branded London Crosslink. It operated from 22 May 2000 until 28 September 2002, due to poor patronage.

A more successful new service with Rail Partnership Funding was introduced on 29 September 2002 from Norwich to Cambridge on the Breckland Line; the route continues to operate.

From Wikipedia’s article on Anglia Railways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 1997Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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