Local Support, International Reach
Greater Anglia has won four national awards for train performance.
At the Golden Whistles Awards 2026 – an annual event organised by Modern Railways magazine and the Chartered Institution of Rail Operators to celebrate excellence in UK railway operations – the train operator again won the awards for Best London and South East operator – (for the punctuality of its commuter and regional services), Best Long Distance operator (for the punctuality of its Norwich – Ipswich – Colchester – London intercity services) and Best Operational Performance (for minimising delays) – for the fourth successive year.
Greater Anglia also won the award for Minimising Cancellations – Long Distance Operator (for its Norwich – Ipswich – Colchester – London intercity services).
It is the first time that a train operator has achieved such a sustained period of success at the awards (having won three awards at the event in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025 and now four awards in 2026) – and also the first time an operator has won four awards at the annual event.
The awards are based solely on actual operational results and statistics, rather than any wider factors, and reflect Greater Anglia’s sustained high levels of train performance over the last year.
Greater Anglia’s moving annual average performance, using the challenging “Time to 3” performance measure (which measures the arrival within 3 minutes of every single train at every single station it serves) is at an impressive 91.9%.
Also impressive is its performance using the long-standing public performance measure (PPM) which records train arrivals at destination within 5 minutes of schedule time (or 10 minutes for intercity services), where the annual figure is 93.3% – continuing the historically high results being delivered by the train operator for the last six years.
A number of routes – including the lines from Norwich to Sheringham, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, from Ipswich to Lowestoft, from Marks Tey to Sudbury and from London to Southend, Chelmsford, Clacton, Walton and Harwich – even have annual punctuality results of over 95%.
These consistently good results, and associated recognition at the awards event, are testament to a number of factors, including the positive impact of the new trains in place across the entire Greater Anglia network (which accelerate quicker, brake quicker, are more reliable and enable better recovery from delays than the trains they replaced); a real focus from teams across Greater Anglia on improving performance, and joint work between Greater Anglia and Network Rail to raise punctuality and reliability standards (including better infrastructure performance delivered by Network Rail).
It means that Greater Anglia is consistently the best-performing operator in the UK, despite operating over one of the more complex and congested networks.
“We’re really proud to have received these four major awards this year, going one better after winning three awards every year for the past three years. It’s further deserved recognition for our teams and the excellent performance being delivered across Greater Anglia over the past 12 months.
“Customers consistently rate a punctual and reliable service as their key priority for rail travel, so we have been focusing relentlessly on meeting those expectations and, with the help of our new trains and targeted work by colleagues across our company, day in, day out, we have been delivering performance at the highest standards ever seen in our region, on an ongoing basis, for six years now. We also recognise the work of our key industry partners, such as Network Rail, Stadler and Alstom, in providing such a good service.
“We pledged that with the help of our new trains we would transform the rail travel experience in East Anglia, both in terms of the on-train environment and performance standards. We’ve achieved that aim and we’re continuing to deliver those high standards in public ownership. We are fully focused on maintaining and further improving service standards in the years ahead to deliver an even better, even more consistent service.”
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10.03.2026
