Hopes for 2021 from Greater Anglia Managing Director

February 10, 2021

More and more new trains will be coming into passenger service across East Anglia over the coming year, according to Greater Anglia Managing Director Jamie Burles.

So far 66 brand new trains are in passenger service on the Greater Anglia network – leaving a total of 125 more to come.

Jamie talks about the new state-of-the-art trains in a blog and series of video clips where he lists Greater Anglia’s achievements of the past year and sets out what the company hopes to do in 2021. He thanks Greater Anglia staff for keeping the railway going throughout the pandemic and talks of the company’s success in continuing with the new trains programme, achieving record-breaking punctuality and making environmental improvements including an 11 per cut in carbon emissions.

“A big thank you to the Greater Anglia team for everything they’ve done over the past year, often under difficult circumstances due to the pandemic.”

Jamie refers to a pledge he made last March to improve punctuality: “I am pleased to say that we kept our word and we have delivered against that pledge, so we’ve seen record-breaking punctuality over the last year and that’s something that we’ve got to continue.”

He said that 40,000 more trains were on time in 2020 than in 2019 –  and there are more tough punctuality targets for the year ahead.

Jamie also talks about Greater Anglia’s work to reduce its carbon emissions, decrease waste, increase recycling and develop biodiversity at stations, working with local communities and partners. “As a business, we’re also focusing on reducing our carbon footprint and making improvements which will help the environment.

“As we all think about building back better, as we recover from the pandemic, you can always consider using one of the most environmentally friendly modes of transport available and travelling with us – travelling by train,” Although he reminds people that, in the meantime, current Government advice is to stay at home and only travel for legally permissible reasons, such as work or medical appointments. Looking to the future, he concluded by saying: “I hope to see you, our passengers, at some point this year.”

Recorded during lockdown, the video clips have been recorded using Teams – in contrast to his message for 2020 which was recorded at a busy London Liverpool Street station.

The blog and videos can be found here.

Current travel advice is to stay at home and only travel for legally permissible reasons. Greater Anglia has stepped up cleaning and sanitising of its trains and stations, installed measures to make social distancing easier and is reminding everyone to wear a face covering on trains and stations.

Information about what the company is doing to keep passengers save can be found in the company’s Safer Travel Pledge on the Greater Anglia website.