In message , at 20:22:37 on Sat, 19 Dec
2015, Roland Perry remarked:
So it's like this:

Ely ------------------------------------ Peterborough
\
Ely ---------a-------------------------- Peterborough
\
*
\
b------c--------------- Kings Lynn
\ \
\ -------------- Kings Lynn
\
d------------------ Norwich
\
----------------- Norwich

As is fairly obvious, places like "*" are a monster bottleneck.

That looks a bit cheap and nasty, even to a non-trainspotter. Whose
clever idea was that design then?

British Rail (the nationalised outfit which people still insist could
have done no wrong) in the 70's/80's simplifying lots of junctions to
have fewer moving parts, on the grounds that rail transport was in
managed decline.

At the time there was probably only 1tph in either the Kings Lynn or
Norwich directions.

.... but now there's routinely 2.5tph each way to Peterborough, 2tph each
way to Norwich, and 1tph to Kings Lynn proposed to increase to 2tph,
plus freights, they can't get the necessary 11.5tph+freight past the
"a".
--
Roland Perry