Normal rail services are to be restored on all East Anglian rail routes on Wednesday morning after Tuesday’s snow proved less serious than first feared.

Greater Anglia and Network Rail announced at the weekend that services on Tuesday and Wednesday would be run to an emergency timetable – and that there would be no trains at all on lines from Ipswich to Lowestoft and Felixstowe and from Colchester to Colchester Town.

However Network Rail has now said that normal services are to be restored from first thing on Wednesday after the worst of the snow fell in Kent rather than East Anglia.

Meliha Duymaz, route managing director for Network Rail Anglia said: “The forecasts all predicted heavy snow in our region, but for us, it has not been as bad as anticipated, with the latest radar imagery showing the worst of the snow has fallen around 20 miles further south east.

“We are now working with our train operating partners to restore as many services as we can and expect to be able to run a full service tomorrow. I’d like to apologise to passengers who have had difficult journeys this morning and thank them for their patience.”

The decision to cancel rail services 48 hours before the “Beast from the East” arrived in the region provoked criticism from some passengers and users’ groups.

They felt the decision to cut the trains had been made too early – and that the normal service should have been maintained.

However a spokeswoman for Greater Anglia said the decision was taken in consultation with Network Rail and meteorologists who warned that very serious snowfall was heading towards the region.

Trains on the main line between the region and London did run on Tuesday – and in many cases kept to a normal timetable.

But there were fewer services – and there were other problems. One service had to be abandoned at Colchester after a window in the driver’s cab shattered – forcing passengers to leave the train and switch to an already-crowded service that arrived 20 minutes later.

Some trains started running on lines that had been closed on Tuesday during the late afternoon to ensure the track was clear for the re-introduction of normal services on Wednesday morning.