Introduction.
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Castle Cary is a small town in East Somerset. The station is about one mile north of the town. The village of Ansford is just north of Castle Cary and is therefore closer to the station then Castle Cary itself.

History.
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Castle Cary station was originally on the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway, a railway that linked the Great Western Railway (GWR) at Chippenham with Weymouth. The line was authorised in 1845, was acquired by the GWR in 1850, reached Castle Cary on 1 September 1856, and was completed throughout in 1857.
For the remainder of the 19th century, the GWR's principal route from London Paddington station to Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance was the route via Bristol Temple Meads (the so-called Great Way Round). However in 1895 the GWR directors announced that new lines were to be constructed to enable trains to reach Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance in a shorter time. The first stages involved improvements to the Berks and Hants Extension Railway and the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Line. This was followed by the construction of the Langport and Castle Cary Railway, which was opened from Castle Cary to the existing Bristol to Exeter line at Cogload Junction in 1906. This transformed Castle Cary from a station on a secondary north to south line, to one on a main east to west route. The route resulting from these improvements and extensions forms the current London to Penzance line. (Source : Wikipedia)

Castle Cary station is still open, as are both the London to Taunton main line and the Weymouth line, allthough the latter is now single track only.
The station has been remodelled such that the former Down Goods Line is now the Branch Line platform, with the cross-over from the Up line now situated to the east of the station. Some remnants of the Down Siding and Up Siding still remain, but the Dock and associated sidings have all been lifted.


Simulation.
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The simulation reflects the situation at Castle Cary as it was in the 1940's and 1950's. Both lines were still double track, and all sidings still in place.

Please note that the extended lever plates do not always show the required related levers. For some signals there are too many routes or options to be shown on the lever plate.
For full locking details for all routes please refer to the locking table.

Adaptations.
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Some small adaptations were made in order to meet the requirements of the simulation software.

Signal 76 : this signal was added as the program requires a single section signal. The original signal 76 (the calling-on subsidiary signal to signal 79) was renumbered to 75, which was spare.

Up Sidings area : the switches in the Dock and Up Siding area were all manually operated. Signal 47 and 67 applied to both Dock Siding and Goods Shed.
The program however requires levers for all switches and signals per individual line. To operate switches and signals in the area, a series of levers were added. The numbers for these levers are preceded by 'S' as identification.

Stopping and timing locations, sidings etc.
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There are a number of stopping locations in this area. These are all identified as separate locations.
In some cases this was required in order to operate the simulation correctly. For instance, if the Up Platform and Up Goods Loop were both identified as the same location, freight trains would never be able to be booked to stop in the Up Goods Loop. As they first pass through the Up Platform, this would then be set as the stop location, so the trains would not pass through to the Up Goods Loop.
For other locations, identifying these as seperate locations makes it possible to set up timed shunt moves between these locations, and to and from the sidings.

List of stopping locations, including length as well as passenger or freight train handling is shown below.
Length is in Units - a unit equals an engine, a passenger coach or three freight wagons.
Train Handling : S=trains can stop, T=trains can terminate.

Name               Location     Length  Pass Freight  remarks
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Down Platform     Castle Cary      6    S,T    S      see note
Up Platform       Castle Cary      6    S,T    S      see note
Down Goods Loop   Down Goods Lp   22     -    S,T
Up Goods Loop     Up Goods Lp     24     -    S,T
Up Refuge Siding  Up Refuge Sdg   19     -    S,T
Dock              Dock Area        3     -    S,T
Dock Siding       Dock Area        5     -    S,T
Goods Shed        Dock Area        5     -    S,T

Note : Up and Down platform : longer trains can stop at these platforms.

Other locations where trains can be held :

Down Goods,   between sigs. 23 and 17      :  8 units
Down Goods,   between sigs. 52 and 25      :  4 units
Down Taunton, between sigs. 70 and  5      : 25 units
Up Taunton,   between sig.  66 and pts. 60 :  2 units

Fringe Boxes.
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The fringe boxes for Castle Cary are as follows.

East : Up / Down Main :
Bruton, 3 miles 38 chains

South, Up / Down Weymouth :
Sparkford, 5 miles 63 chains

West, Up / Down Taunton :
on this line, the next station is Alford Halt. However, the signal box here was only opened when required for local shunt moves.
Similar rule applied to the next station down the line, at Keinton Mandeville.
The first station in the direction of Taunton where the signal box was opened for most of the day was Charlton Mackrell. This, therefore, is set as the fringe station on the Up / Down Taunton line.
Both Alford Halt and Keinton Mandeville are included in the simulation as stations so local trains can stop there as booked.
Distances :
Alford Halt : 2 miles  7 chains from Castle Cary
Keinton M.  : 4 miles 69 chains from Castle Cary
              2 miles 62 chains from Alford Halt
Charlton M. : 7 miles  3 chains from Castle Cary
              2 miles 14 chains from Keinton M.

Notes on shunting.
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Timetables for this simulation will undoubtly include some shunt moves.
therefore some notes on best practices for shunting to avoid operator errors and other problems.

Undescribed trains (with "Z" headcode) which are shunted to another stop location will often require manual redescription. It is best to describe these trains to the required headcode before making the final move into the required location. This ensures the train properly stops at this location and await it's booked departure.

If a 'shunt' command is to be set for a train, it is best to do so before the final signal leading to the required shunt position is cleared. This is to avoid 'overshoot' if the shunt command is set late. This applies in particular to situations where there is only one signal to clear before reaching the required shunt position.
Remember that, for trains which have a booked departure time, a 'shunt' command can be set before departure as, unlike for 'modern' simulations, the shunt command does not overrule the booked departure time.

Timetable editor restrictions.
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The definition of separate locations as detailed above imposes some restrictions on the timetable editor.
Through routes from entry line to exit line (e.g. from Down Main to Down Taunton) can be defined only once. These routes are defined with passing or stop location set to Castle Cary, which refers to Up or Down platform.
As a result, it is not possible to set through routes for trains which need to stop in the Up or Down Goods Loop or Up Refuge Siding. Trains which are to stop in one of these locations, must terminate there and be redescribed.
Note that heritage simulations do not support 'trip' workings as 'modern' simulations do, so these workings will require two different headcodes, one from entry to the stop location, then these trains will redescribe to another headcode for the part from the stop location to the exit.
Note also that this restriction does only apply when building a timetable using the Timetable Editor. If a timetable is build by editing the related files directly, this restriction does not apply.

Another restriction is that the total number of possible stops for any train is limited to four stops only - both in the Timetable Editor as well as in the simulation itself.
This means it is not possible to define a through stopping train from Down Main to Down Taunton or v.v., as that would be a total of 5 stops.
therefore, through trains can only be booked to stop at Bruton and Castle Cary. Local trains required to stop at Alford Halt, Keinton Mandeville or Charlton Mackrell must originate or terminate in Castle Cary itself. Through trains requiring stops at these halts must be redescribed at Castle Cary.

Opening Picture.
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The opening picture shows Castle Cary station, looking west, in the early 1960's. Note that this shows the west end of the station after major remodelling work performed in late 1963 : the connection from the Down Main to the Down Goods, and from Up Main to Down Goods (switch 44 and cross-over 43) have been lifted. Signal 40 has therefore been removed, and sigs. 4 and 6 have been moved further out, to beyond switches 38 and 21.
Thanks to Alan Duckworth for providing this picture.

Acknowledgements.
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As ever, many thanks to the PC-rail test team for their relentless effort to ensure these simulations are up to the required standards.
In particular thanks to Peter Dean, Peter Mould, Peter Smith, Alan Ashley, Dave Howell and Mike Suggate for their test efforts.
