Just days after telling passengers there should be few problems reaching London from Ipswich and Norwich over Christmas, Network Rail has decided to close the line at Chelmsford.

On October 2 the state-owned company put out a statement saying that while Liverpool Street station would be closed over the entire Christmas holiday period trains would be able to get to Stratford from where there are easy Tube and Elizabeth Line connections.

It said: "Apart from 25 and 26 December, the GEML (Great Eastern Main Line) is expected to be open for passenger services between Xmas and New Year between Norwich and Stratford."

However just days later it has announced that it will be closing the line for the construction of the new station north of Chelmsford on December 27 and 28 - forcing passengers to use buses between Witham and Billericay stations and adding up to an hour to journeys.

In a joint statement released with Greater Anglia about the line closure, Lawrence Bowman, route director, Network Rail Anglia, said: “We’re really sorry for the disruption to services over this period, but the work is vital to maintaining reliability and building a better railway for the future.”

However there was no apology for the inaccurate information earlier this month which may have given passengers the impression that their festive journeys would be easier than will be the case.

Normally major engineering work is planned by Network Rail months in advance but this time it seems that a major change was made in little more than a week.

The line will be open as far as Stratford from December 29 to January 1 and then the whole route to Liverpool Street should be back to normal on January 2.