RAIL bosses say lessons have been learned from the major disruption which followed last year's festive maintenance work - as a new programme of work gets underway.

RAIL bosses say lessons have been learned from the major disruption which followed last year's festive maintenance work - as a new programme of work gets underway.

Commuters from East Anglia suffered a series of delays last year on the London mainline after the work over-ran.

Once again there will be a series of projects over Christmas and New Year with some replacement coach services in place.

A spokesman said: “Learning lessons from last year's over-run, Network Rail has almost completely re-written the rule book when carrying out major pieces of work, involving more detailed and earlier planning, more checking of resources and manpower and military style command posts set up to control and oversee the work.”

It said its work during the festive period would result in an altered service through until early next year but said the quiet time of year meant it was better to do the work.

For people travelling from London to Ipswich and beyond, services will be running today but starting and terminating at Ilford with replacement buses.

A spokesman said: “The work that we're doing over Christmas is part of a wider project to completely renew the overhead power lines along large parts of the line from Liverpool Street through Essex.”

For more details of the changes during the festive period go to www.nationalrail.co.uk