train operating company
In the railway system of Great Britain, a train operating company (TOC) is a railway undertaking operating passenger trains under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways ...
in England owned by
FirstGroup
FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Great Eastern Main Line
The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and t ...
Clacton-on-Sea
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and seaside resort, resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, wi ...
,
Walton-on-the-Naze
Walton-on-the-Naze is a seaside town on the North Sea coast. It is part of the parish of Frinton and Walton, in the Tendring District, Tendring district in Essex, England. The town is located north of Clacton and south of the port of Harwich; ...
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...
Marks Tey
Marks Tey is a large village and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in Essex, England; it is located six miles west of Colchester. It is one in a group of villages called ''The Teys'', including Great Tey and L ...
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...
Anglia Railways
Anglia Railways was a train operating company in England, owned by GB Railways and later FirstGroup, that operated the Anglia franchise from January 1997 until March 2004.
History
The Anglia franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Ra ...
for the
Marks Tey
Marks Tey is a large village and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in Essex, England; it is located six miles west of Colchester. It is one in a group of villages called ''The Teys'', including Great Tey and L ...
to Sudbury service due to it not being electrified, a Class 150 being used on weekdays and a Class 153 on weekends. Prior to this arrangement, a Class 121 ''Bubble Car'' was hired from Silverlink.
A franchise commitment was the replacement of the Class 312s. In May 2001, First Great Eastern ordered 21 Class 360 ''Desiros'' with the first entering service in August 2003.
Depot
First Great Eastern's fleet was maintained at
Ilford
Ilford is a large List of areas of London, town in East London, England, northeast of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Redbridge, Ilford is within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London. It had a po ...
depot.
Demise
In 2002, as part of a franchise reorganisation by the Strategic Rail Authority, it was announced that the Great Eastern franchise would be merged into the Greater Anglia franchise. In December 2003, the Strategic Rail Authority awarded the Greater Anglia franchise to
National Express
Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. Th ...
, and the services operated by First Great Eastern were transferred to
One
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...