East Anglia will receive a fully modernised rail service with faster trains, more seats, and free Wi-Fi in what has been hailed as ‘the biggest investment in British railways since the Victorian era’ by transport secretary Chris Grayling.

Abellio East Anglia will be responsible for delivering the £1.4 billion upgrade to the region’s rail services, with 1,043 new state-of-the-art carriages joining the network between January 2019 and September 2020.

Almost £1 billion of the money will go on building 660 carriages at the Derby-based Bombardier factory in what is one of the biggest orders for British-built trains ever.

The new franchise will introduce at least four 90-minute services between London and Norwich each weekday and two 60-minute services per day between London and Ipswich.

This is expected to cut journey times by 10 per cent on average with a new operational performance target of 93 per cent, currently 89.7 per cent.

Overall, it means that by 2012, there will be more than 32,000 more seats on services arriving at London’s Liverpool Street station during the morning peak.

The new franchise will run from October 2016 until 2025.