THE managing director of a train company has apologised for the 'extensive disruption' to services over the past week.

Jamie Burles, managing director for Greater Anglia, published a statement online explaining the reasons for the disruption.

He said there had been:

- Two separate fatalities, one at Kelvedon 

- A major trespass incident in Colchester, on the Colchester/Clacton line, which closed Cowdray Avenue. 

- Some significant Network Rail infrastructure faults : loss of signalling at Ilford and a signal fault at Liverpool Street

He said: "When major disruption happens on the Greater Anglia network we have contingency plans that we put in place.

"We send out office-based staff to help at stations, re-schedule trains, redeploy staff and lift ticket restrictions.

"All with the aim of getting services back to normal as soon as possible. We implemented all of these actions last week.

"However, due to the specific nature of the incidents, they still had a big impact on many customers’ experience.

"We know many people suffered some very disrupted journeys and significant inconvenience. We are striving to improve our management of disruption and our response to such problems."