SECTIONAL APPENDIX - MANNINGTREE
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General and History
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On the 8th of August 1843, a businessman named John Chevalier Cobbold presented a plan to build a railway from Colchester to Ipswich. The company to build that line was named Eastern Union Railway. The plan was launched out of frustration with the failure of the Eastern Counties Railway to fullfill its promise to extend its line beyond Colchester which it had reached earlier that year.
The EUR obtained authorization to build the route in 1844 and the line opened in May 1846. Manningtree was one of the three intermediate stations, just south of the crossing of the river Stour. The EUR then extended its line north of Ipswich, to Bury and Norwich.
A major problem for the EUR was that it dependent on the ECR for services west of Colchester. As the ECS was also EUR's competitor for the Norwich traffic, as it had its own line to Norwich via Ely, this cooperation did not go well and the ECR tried to disrupt through traffic from London through Colchester as much as possible. This put a stranglehold on EUR finances and in 1854, the EUR ceased running trains and leased its network to the ECR. It maintained ownership of the lines but no longer ran any trains itself.
In 1862, the ECR and EUR were, together with a number of other companies,
amalgamated into the Great Eastern Railway.

Harwich has always been an important port for services to the Netherlands and Germany, and schemes to build a railway to connect to the port were launched as early as 1836. But it wasn't until 1847 that the EUR obtained authorization to build the line, as a branch of the Ipswich line, starting at Manningtree.
Work started in 1848, but was halted for some time due to financial troubles
of the EUR brought on by its Norwich extention, and the line was not completed
until 1854. By that time, services were run by the ECR so the EUR never actually ran any trains to Harwich.

An important development on the Harwich branch was the creation in the 1880's of the port at Parkeston, a few miles short of the town of Harwich itself. Parkeston Quay, as this port was called, would become an important ferry port for services to the continent. Before WWII, services ran to Belgium (Zeebrugge, Antwerpen), Netherlands (Vlissingen, Hoek van Holland), Germany (Hamburg) and Denmark (Esbjerg). After WWII, the services were mainly restricted to Hoek van Holland and Esbjerg. The Harwich-Hoek van Holland route was an offical railway ferry route, with through ticketing, and boat trains connecting with the "Hook Ferry" were an important feature on this route.

Manningtree station and the routes to Ipswich and Harwich remain in use today. Both the mainline and the Harwich branch are electrified. Manningtree station was rebuild around 1900 by the Great Eastern and has remained much the same since. Only, as in so many places, most sidings etc. were lifted. The North Curve also still exists but has been singled to ease the points and the curvature.

Parkeston Quay also still survives, now as Harwich International Port. The ferry services to Hoek van Holland also still sail, but the railway connection no longer plays an important role in the ferry traffic.

Signalling
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Ths signalling as depicted in this same is based on a diagram dated 1953.
Track layout and signalling is authentic to this layout apart from adaptations listed below. The track circuit locations, names and colours are also authentic, except for track circuit "S" which has been extended to additional signal 53A.

There were three groundframes in the area, two to enable traffic to serve the Brantham Siding and a further one for access to and from the most western connection to the up yard. All groundframe levers are placed at the left end of the simulation.

Adaptations
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The following adaptions were made to comply with the requirement with the PCRail software.

Additional signals to allow traffic to/from yards or sidings :
 - A2 and A3 to allow access to and from Brantham Sidings;
 - B2 to allow trains to reverse and crossover on points B1;
 - 40A to allow trains to proceed from the Dock Platform to
    the end of the bay;

Signal 53A has been added in order to create a single exit signal on the Harwich branch.

Lever 51 operated two signals, one on the Up Main and the other on the exit from the Up Siding.
In the simulation, these signals are controlled by levers 51 and 51A respectively.

Local instructions
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Points 21 and 22, giving access to the North Curve, are motor operated and therefor not equiped with FPL.

The points where the North Curve rejoins the main lines are spring points.
Routes can be set through these points from both signals (11 and 53 towards
Harwich, 13 and 54 towards Ipswich) without the need to first set the points.

A special location has been created for the end of the Dock Platform, between sig. 40 and the buffer stop. This is to allow the run-round moves for trains in the Dock Platform to be properly timed.
Branch Sidings has also been set up as a separate location, allowing timed moves between the siding and the station.

Take care not to run any trains beyond points 39 on the Run Round Road. Because there is no signal on the dead-end of this siding, it is not possible to restart any trains stored on this section. If sending trains to the Run Round Road from signal 31, either reverse points 39 or set a shunt command to signal 33.

Exit Up Siding 2 only gives access to a short spur at the station end of the siding, not to the siding itself. This exit can therefor only be used for light engines.

General instructions
--------------------
Rules to caution trains.
For semaphore signalling, the rule (rule 39A) applied that for a sequence of signals which had no intermediate or combined distant signal, if the last signal in this sequence could not be cleared, all preceding signals had to be kept at 'danger' at the approach of the train and could only be cleared if the speed of the train was sufficiently reduced. For the simulation, the speed must be reduced (to about 10 mph on approach). The speed while passing the signal must not exceed 15 mph.
See the locking details for the list of signals and conditions where and when trains must be cautioned. Note that the cautioning does not always apply for shunt moves which are wholly within the station area.

Locking rules.
For locking rules please see locking table.

FPL.
Facing Point Locks (FPL) have been provided where these were installed - see Locking information for details.
FPL's normally stand 'in', i.e. the normal position of these levers is 'normal', in this position the linked switches are locked. To operate the switch, set the FPL lever to 'reverse'. Once the switch is thrown, return the FPL lever to 'normal'. FPL levers are locked in 'normal' if a route is set over the switch on which they operate, or when this route is occupied. If an FPL is in 'reverse' position, all routes over the related switch are blocked and signals can not be cleared.
Note that if an FPL operates on a switch which is part of a crossover, these rules generally also apply to the other switch of this crossover even if the FPL does not work directly on this switch; some shunt moves are exempt from this rule.

Notes on shunting
-----------------
The 'shunt' command must be used if a train is to reverse at a particular signal. It is good practice to issue the shunt command before clearing the last signal which leads to the location where the train is to reverse, this in order to avoid 'overshoot' when the shunt command is issued too late for the engine to brake in time, which will result in the engine running past the reversal point up to the next signal.
The 'shunt' command can be issued for a train waiting to depart as issuing this command does not affect the timed departure of this train. However, the shunt command must NOT be used for a signal which is beyond a booked station stop before the train has come to a stand for that specific station stop. Setting the shunt command before the train has stopped will cancel out the station stop, and will lead to an error on missed station stop.
 
If an engine is to be attached to a train, it has to be terminated before it can do so.
If the engine is terminated in the same location as the train to which it is to be attached, it will stop short of this train. After the engine has terminated and is redescribed to a 0Z** number, it can be moved onto the train using the 'proceed' command, and can then be coupled to the train using the 'couple' command.
If the engine is terminated in another location and is moved onto the train while it already has a 0Z** number, it will move upto the train and can then be coupled using the 'couple' command.

Section lengths
---------------

The list below details the lengths of platforms and sidings etc.
The length is defined in units, each unit equals an engine, a passenger coach, or 3 wagons.

Up Platform    : 11 units
Down Platform  : 11 units
Back Platform  : 11 units
Dock Platform  :  5 units
                 (4 units only if the engine is to run round)
Branch Sidings :  4 units


Speed Restrictions
------------------

Main line          : 80 mph, 
                     but 70 mph from the North Junction to
                     the west end of the station
Harwich branch     : 60 mph,
                     but 25 mph through connection with main line
Dock Platform      : 15 mph
Other sidings etc. : 10 or 15 mph

Fringe boxes
------------

Distances of fringe boxes.

Dedham  : 1m 78c from Manningtree box
          0m 66c from signal 009
          0m 50c from distant signal 63

Dedham was a block post only, first station westward was Ardleigh.

Bentley : 3m 52c from Manningtree box
          2m 23c from signal 052
          1m 50c from distant signal C

Mistley : 1m 72c from Manningtree box
          1m 14c from signal 053A
          0m 66c from distant signal 004

Track circuit B1 starts 550 yard ahead of signal 62
Track circuit V starts 1200 yard ahead of signal C
 
Train Reporting Numbers
-----------------------
Train reporting numbers only came into use in later years, and also changed over the years. See timetable information for details.

Opening Picture
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The opening picture shows class B1 4-6-0 61311 preparing to run round its train via the Run Round Road. The picture is undated.
The picture was obtained through Colour-Rail (www.colourrail.com).

Acknowledgements
----------------
Thanks to PC-Test team for their help in testing this simulation, and as ever to John Dennis for providing the basic program for the heritage simulations.
