Bosses slam brakes on weekend rail misery (From Maldon and Burnham Standard)
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Bosses slam brakes on weekend rail misery
7:00am Sunday 30th September 2012 in News
RAIL bosses have promised weekend travellers from Tendring a smoother ride next year.
Network Rail and Greater Anglia this week vowed to reduce disruptive engineering works and limit replacement buses over Christmas and at weekends.
They promised only two Saturdays on the main line would include replacement buses and there would be none at all from the end of March until early October.
Network Rail spokesman Dave Ward said: "We expect it will have a positive impact on the whole region, boosting economic growth as more people use the railway at weekends.
“There is still a huge amount of work to do to improve things further but we have found a much better balance, which I hope passengers will welcome.
Bosses also said that there would be only seven weekends when engineering work would take place on the Greater Anglia line during 2013.
Two weekend services will terminate at Stratford with passengers changing on to the tube for the remainder of their journey.
The announcement follows a weekend of passenger misery with services between Tendring and London taking more than two hours - twice as long as normal.
No services are running between Witham and Shenfield on Saturdays or Sundays for the next ten weeks, with passengers being herded onto replacement buses between Witham and Billericay while engineers replace overhead cables.
