Abellio Greater Anglia to Abellio East Anglia
As Many Of You Are Aware, The AGA Franchise Renews This October For Services In East Anglia, Including To Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Abellio Continue The Franchise, But Renamed East Anglia Ltd.
Greater Anglia, as it was at first, began in February 2012 - operating the short term tender which was due to expire in July 2014. However, the Government later extended this franchise, and it then became the rebranded Abellio Greater Anglia.
In December 2014, AGA began to overhaul their entire Intercity Fleet. 12013 was the first carriage to return in the new livery, and then the remaining 118 carriages followed with the same treatment - as well as an internal refurbishment (new seat covers, plug sockets, toilets, wall panels, carpets) and also conversions to many of the buffet cars too.
As part of this £4 million upgrade, there were also alterations to other fleet members too.
In May 2015, Abellio lost their Metro and West Anglia routes to TFL Rail and TFL London Overground.
Before Christmas 2015, ex-London Midland ScotRail units were subleased to AGA, whilst their overhaul programme was underway for their own 321s. This also came after the news for the Renatus project.
Class 170s finally underwent an internal overhaul, to bring seats up to date - as stated in this updates post here. Of course though, the main topic of the AGA franchise was that the Hauled Set was loaned due to a shortage of DMUs caused by Maintenance, Overhauls and Faults both home and away. Plus a handful amount of station upgrades! :D Some great improvements.
And free Wi-Fi to be installed to many more stations and Intercity Stock by October 2016. Not forgetting the new maintenance plant for trains at Manningtree from approximately 2020 in the new franchise.
This investment will naturally continue as part of the new agreement! Ongoing for Abellio, with their entire new fleet and many upgrades as stated before!
