By Casey Jones, Railways Correspondent

Rail company Greater Anglia has informed passengers it is cancelling most services in the first two weeks of July because it is forecast to be very hot.

Cautious bosses say rails and overhead lines are affected by hot weather, and it is better to just cancel the services four months ahead.

As a result, they have stopped all branch line services for a fortnight, and reduced running on the mainline into London.

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The news comes just days after Greater Anglia cut many services ahead of some expected cold weather this week.

Despite not much snow affecting the region on Tuesday morning, many people could not find a train, and there were reports of crowds building up at Chelmsford in Essex.

Commuter Lorraine Fisher, 34, from Woodbridge in Suffolk was not impressed with the July closures.

“The trains stop if it is too cold. They stop if it is too hot. They stop if there are leaves on the line, and they stop if there is the wrong kind of rain.

“It might be much easier if Greater Anglia just sent out a press release informing us which days of the year the trains will actually be running.”

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An insider at Greater Anglia said: “We were right to cancel so many trains before a snowflake had actually fallen this week.

“And in the same way we are right to stop all the trains in July – a decision we took today to make sure all our customers have plenty of time to find alternative transport.

“If it is too hot, like the weather experts tell us it will be in July, then the rails can buckle and the overhead lines don’t like it.

“There is also an increased risk of line-side fires, and we wouldn’t want any of our trains and customers to go up in an inferno.”

Meanwhile, commuters were today left wondering how the rail services in frozen Canada seem to work perfectly well. All the time.

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