Hertford East train services nationalised

Greater Anglia has become the latest train company to be nationalised after the government took control of services at 2am this morning.

Services across the region will now be run by the goverment's Department for Transport through a publicly owned company named GA Trains Limited. It will later be integrated in to Great British Railways.

Train timetables, fares and staffing will be unaffected by the change, with the new body retaining the train comany's website.

Greater Anglia was recently named Rail Operator of the Year at the National Transport Awards 2025, and has built up a strong track record of running punctual services, with 93.9% of trains arriving within 3 minutes between April 2024 and March 2025.

Services across the region have been operated by Greater Anglia since February 2012, when it took over from Natonal Express, who themselves had been running the service since taking over from First Great Eastern in March 2004. Until 1997 the service was run by British Railways.

Commenting on the transition, Managing Director of Greater Anglia Martin Beable, said: "We are proud of the transformation we’ve delivered at Greater Anglia in recent years and we’re fully committed to maintaining those high standards as we pass into public ownership. We’re keen to keep on delivering service improvements for customers and communities.

"I'd like to thank the GA team for all they’ve done to enable us to raise our service standards and deliver a better service for our passengers and stakeholders.

"I'd also like to pay tribute to the Transport UK team for their key role in our success. Without their ambitious bid, their vision to achieve complete replacement of all our fleet with new trains and their excellent support, backing and input, the positive step change in services we've delivered would not have been possible.

We're pleased to end the current era with Greater Anglia as one of the best train operators in the UK and look forward to building on that positive legacy under public ownership in the years ahead."

Services at Hertford North, which are operated by Govia Thameslink, will be nationalised in 31st May 2026. There is speculation that this service will later be transferred to Transport For London (TfL).