Essential improvements on the railway line between London and Norwich will take place over eight weekends until mid-March.

Upgrades worth £15million will start on January 31 and will affect services at Colchester, Witham, Chelmsford and Marks Tey.

Abellio Greater Anglia will run a bus service for passengers during the days affected.

Network Rail route managing director, Richard Schofield, said: “This investment is absolutely vital to help us deliver a better service for passengers.

"We know that people want to travel by train and not a bus, but the line from London Liverpool Street to Norwich carries a huge amount of traffic and desperately needs this boost.

“The project will deliver a more consistent and reliable service for passengers who travel on this line. We would like to thank passengers in advance for bearing with us over these weekends as it will mean some changes to their travel plans.”

Jamie Burles, managing director of Abellio Greater Anglia, said: "Although there is never a good time for such engineering works, this investment by Network Rail will help in our joint objective to deliver more consistent train service performance on our mainline.

"We will be doing all we can to minimise inconvenience to passengers during the course of these works.

"In addition to Network Rail's investment in the infrastructure, we are also investing over £30million in the current short franchise to improve customer service, train cleaning and rolling stock, including £9million in the project now underway to upgrade our intercity Mark III carriages."

Work will include new track and points at Witham and upgraded overhead lines in Chelmsford.