Greater Anglia is reassuring passengers that the network is open for travel this Christmas despite engineering works taking place near London.

Network Rail is carrying out works from December 23-January 1 between Shenfield and London Liverpool Street.

Greater Anglia has organised 750 buses to shuttle passengers from Ingatestone and Billericay, ensuring that they can still make their journeys with minimum fuss, and will have an extra 600 staff on hand over 10 days to help passengers.

On the Norwich to London mainline, all services will run as far as Ingatestone, where passengers can transfer onto a replacement coach service which will take them to Newbury Park for tube services into the capital.

On the Southend Victoria/Southminster to London line, train services will to Billericay where passengers will be bussed to Newbury Park.

And for West Anglia services, Greater Anglia will operate a half-hourly Stansted Express service, and hourly Liverpool Street to Cambridge service and an hourly Liverpool Street to Stansted stopping service.

An easy-to-understand leaflet explaining the works and the changes to train services is available at staffed stations.

Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia’s managing director, said: “We will make sure that customers can complete their journeys during all periods of engineering work, even if part of it is by bus.

“Our rail replacement bus service operates very smoothly, with extra staff on hand to direct customers to the right bus.

“These works are crucial if we are to get the modern railway we need in East Anglia and combined with the new trains we’re getting to replace every single train on our network, should lead to a transformed railway for us all.”

Network Rail is replacing overhead wires between Shenfield and Seven Kings which will mean fewer problems and fewer delays for passengers in the future.

Greater Anglia has also asked other train operators to accept Greater Anglia tickets to make passengers’ journeys easier.

• C2C will accept Greater Anglia Monthly / Annual Season tickets.

• London Underground will accept Greater Anglia ticket holders between Newbury Park and Liverpool Street.

• Great Eastern Mainline season tickets will be accepted at equivalent West Anglia stations.

• Customers to/ from Diss and Stowmarket buying walk-up tickets, including season tickets, will be permitted to travel via Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge into/ out of Kings Cross or Liverpool Street. This does not apply to customers from Ipswich or Needham Market.

• Customers wishing to use Oyster/PAYG to travel beyond Liverpool St on the Underground can either touch in at Newbury Park, at a cost of 40p more, or alight at Stratford, touch in on the platform there, and re-board for the same price, except 0630-0930 on December 27-29 when it is 50p cheaper to alight at Liverpool Street go through the barriers and touch in again.