Over the years the principal main line services between Norwich and Liverpool Street were routed via Ipswich or Cambridge, generally depending on the quickest journey time available. Before the GER was formed its predecessor the Eastern Counties Railway had a reputation for speed second only to the Great Western and Great Northern Railways. From 1850 to 1855 Cambridge could be reached in 75 minutes ( from Stratford), a further 20 minutes to Ely () and a further 55 minutes to Wymondham () giving an average speed of . There is some doubt as to the reliability of these times; as the writer Thackeray observed in The Lamentable Ballad of the Foundling of Shoreditch, "For even the Heastern Counties' trains must come in at last."