Rail passengers are set to experience widespread disruption as work on a major modernisation plan gets under way.

Network Rail is installing a new signalling system on the Norwich to Lowestoft and Norwich to Great Yarmouth routes from Saturday, October 21 to Monday, October 30.

The work will also impact some other services in north Norfolk and east Suffolk.

During the intensive period of work there will be changes to the normal rail service and some trains will be replaced with buses.

On the Norwich to Lowestoft line rail replacement buses will operate between 10.30am and 3.50pm Monday to Friday.

A normal train service will be in operation before and after these times.

A rail replacement bus service will be running on the Norwich to Lowestoft line for the weekends of October 21-22 and October 28-30, with train services being suspended from late Friday until early Monday morning.

There will also be a rail replacement bus service between Lowestoft and Beccles on both weekends.

On the Norwich to Great Yarmouth line, a rail replacement service will run from Saturday, October 21 to Monday, October 30, on weekdays and weekends.

The will be no service running to Berney Arms for the whole period as there are no roads to the station.

As a result of the signalling project the Norwich to Sheringham service will be a replacement bus on Sunday, October 22.

Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director, said: 'This upgrade will ultimately enable us to run a much more reliable train service.

'We appreciate it is an inconvenience for customers to have to take the bus rather than the train, but we will ensure that all of our customers are able to complete their journeys during this period of engineering works.'

Extra buses have been organised between Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Sheringham and Norwich to help football fans get to the Ipswich Town vs Norwich City match at Portman Road.

Andrew Goodrum, customer service director, said: 'We are putting on extra trains to help football fans travel to and from the match at Portman Road. We are expecting services to be busy as the derby is always a popular match.'