Post by CertesWhen Ely to King’s Lynn could only take four cars, did any services dump
the rest of the train at Ely and pick it up on the way back, or was that
always done at Cambridge?
I'd not want to tempt the Usenet wrath of saying 'always', but AIUI I don't
think there was any splitting at Ely - there were power supply limitations
north of Milton so the Ely portion was usually 4 cars of 365.
The pattern was typically 8 cars from KX to Cambridge, split, front 4 cars
continue to King's Lynn via Ely.
In the peak there were sometimes workings which split at Royston, the rear 4
cars forming the stopper from Royston to Cambridge and the rest continuing
to Ely. I'm not sure if that was before or after services were extended to
12 cars, but I don't think there was ever a double split (4 cars Royston
stopper, 8 cars forward to Cambridge where it further split).
It's possible 12-car-isation was post the power supply upgrade that allowed
8 cars forward to Ely as a regular occurrence; I don't recall whether the
Royston dropoff operated at that point.
Theo