'One Railway' ('‘one’') is the brand name of 'London Eastern Railway Ltd', a British company which operates local, suburban and express services from London Liverpool Street in the City of London to East and NorthLondon, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, otherwise known as the Greater Anglia network. ‘one’ is part of the National Express Group.
The Greater Anglia network was awarded to a single operator as part of a drive to reduce the number of train companies operating to major termini, in an effort to improve integration between services and reliability. On April 1, 2004 ‘one’ took over all services formerly operated by Anglia Railways and First Great Eastern, as well as the ‘West Anglia’ services of WAGN. The company is now the sole passenger operator on most of the Great Eastern Main Line. According to The Daily Telegraph, in March 2006, ‘one’ operated the most overcrowded train in Britain, the 0802 from Cambridge to London Liverpool Street[1].
The extensively and expensively marketed name of the new franchise has also been a source of criticism and confusion. In May 2004, the BBC[2] reported that the company was changing station announcements at Cambridge station by removing the name of the train operating company. Passengers had complained that it was difficult for passengers in the station to differentiate P.A. announcements for the "10:41 train" or the "10:40 ‘one’ train".
Unlike many other operators in the London area, 'one' allows Oyster card pay as you go to be used on a limited number of its services and has announced roll-out plans for the remaining stations in Greater London.
"one" emphasizes the bringing together and integration of what had been four separate services. The company initially used sub-branding to try to ease the transition from the former companies’ well-known names:
★ '‘one’ Anglia' — InterCity services to Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich as well as local services in Suffolk and Norfolk. For further information on local lines see the following links.
Diesel locomotive 47818 at Cambridge on 23 August2004. Owned by Cotswold Rail but hired to ‘one’, this locomotive was used extensively over the summer of 2004 to haul passenger trains between London Liverpool St and Norwich which had been diverted from their usual all-electrified route because of engineering work at Ipswich.
★ '‘one’ Stansted Express' — express services between Liverpool Street and Stansted Airport.
This sub-branding has now been largely discontinued as it was proving to be confusing to passengers, and all services (other than Stansted Express) are now simply branded ‘one’.
In addition to its domestic services, ‘one’ is also a partner (along with Stena Line and Nederlandse Spoorwegen) in the ''Dutchflyer'' service.
Rolling stock
The company operates a fleet of Class 153, 156 and 170DMUs for the local lines, with Class 315, 317, 321 and 360EMUs for the mainline commuter services, and Class 90 locomotives with Mark 3 coaching stock for the intercity services.
Much of the rolling stock is in need of modernisation; class 150s have been replaced by 153s and 156s from Central Trains. The Class 170s stick predominantly to longer services, as they have slower acceleration than the Class 150, 153 and 156 stock, meaning they cannot stick to the timetables of the many local lines.