The railway east of Cambridge is extensively used by freight, and passenger services are provided under the Greater Anglia Franchise, operating as ONE (formerly Anglia Railways). Until 2002, there were no direct passenger trains between Cambridge and Norwich.
A new hourly service was introduced in September 2002 after a successful joint bid by Anglia Railways and the East West Rail Consortium to the Strategic Rail Authority, and the award of a 9.2 million grant from the Rail Passenger Partnership (RPP) Fund. The service has proved to be a huge success with almost 600,000 journeys being made each year, with 44% of passengers having previously made their journey by car. The service is going from strength to strength, and the number of journeys has increase by almost 20% in two years.
A second joint bid to improve the passenger service between Cambridge and Ipswich and Felixstowe was rejected by the Strategic Rail Authority, However, in December 2004, the train operator, ONE, introduced an hourly service to reflect the increasing strategic importance of the Ipswich-Cambridge rail corridor