Are you FLIRTing with me?

Not my normal train shot, I'll grant you; no steam and smoke belching out all over the place.  Mind you, for the modern railway, these are great.  For the technically minded they are a 'Class 755/3 FLIRT' (Fast Light Intercity and Regional Train) and run on electricity where there are overhead lines but otherwise (as on this line) they have a small unit in the middle of the train housing a diesel generator.  They were built by the Swiss manufacturer Stadler Rail and were introduced into service in 2019.  We saw and travelled on many similar ones in Switzerland last year and they were impressive trains.

This region used to have an appalling reputation for trains being late or cancelled but Greater Anglia took the franchise on the promise of introducing a completely new fleet of trains to replace the old, outdated ones.  In the process they went from being one of the worst areas to one of the best, with the Company now having one of the best reputations for reliability and punctuality, and are in the top three franchises for customer satisfaction.  Despite that, they are also going to be one of the first franchises to be re-nationalised by the Government later this year.

I am not qualified to comment on whether the re-nationalisation is a good thing or a bad thing.  Certainly some of the franchises, particularly in the north of the country, have a terrible reputation for late running and cancellations and probably would benefit from nationalisation.  However, I do recall the bad old days of the nationalised British Rail and hope that the better services like this one do not suffer in the process.