I am most annoyed to discover how much worse the train service to East Anglia from Southend Victoria has become since timetable changes were introduced last month.

The most damaging is that the three trains per hour which leave Southend now do so four minutes later than they did before.

This ensures anyone heading for Chelmsford and beyond just misses their connection and has to wait at Shenfield for about 20 minutes in most cases, instead of just a minute or two under the old timetable.

Previously, the Norwich express used to stop at Shenfield at least once an hour. Now it doesn’t stop at all, other than one service in the early morning and another in the evening.

Passengers from Southend now have to make an extra change at Chelmsford, involving further delay.

Passengers travelling from Southend to East Anglia can now expect their journey to take up to half an hour more than before the changes, which is ironic when large sums are being spent on upgrading Southend’s road system in order to shave valuable seconds off journey times.

In contrast the railway company has no problem with adding time to people’s travel with the stroke of a timetabler’s pen.

The advantages of travelling to East Anglia by train rather than by car were already marginal. Under the old timetable there was not much difference in travelling time, but the rail passenger could relax more and didn’t have trouble parking.

Now it is much harder to justify the extra expense of buying a train ticket and no doubt there will be many people, including myself, abandoning the train in favour of the car, resulting in greater pressure on the roads leading out of Southend and a reduction of any improvement the works at Cuckoo Corner and Progress Road might have delivered.

Peter Walker
East Street
Southend