SECTIONAL APPENDIX - Oxenholme
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General and History
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In 1846, the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway opened its railway line between these two towns. To enable the route to pass over the Cumbrian hills, the route had to climb out of the valley and therefore could not serve the town of Kendal. It was decided to build a branch from the main line down to Kendal, the junction of this branch was called, not surprisingly, 'Kendal Junction'.
At first, this branch terminated at Kendal, but in 1847 the Kendal & Windermere railway built the extention of this line to Windermere. After completion of the branch, the Kendal & Windermere Railway was leased to the Lancaster & Carlisle in perpetuity. In 1859, the Lancaster & Carlisle railway itself was leased to the London & North Western Railway into which it eventually merged in 1879.
In 1860, 'Kendal Junction' was renamed 'Oxenholme' after a nearby farm. A village sprang up around the station, which took its name from the station.
For promotional reasons, the station was renamed "Oxenholme The Lake District" in 1988.

Oxenholme had a small depot which was home to just a few branch line engines only. The depot did have full service facilities including a turntable. It never had an allocation of main line engines. The depot was closed in 1962.

In 1973, the West Coast Main Line, as the main line had become known, was electrified as part of the BR modernisation plans. The Windermere branch was not electrified, but it was singled as part of the overall work. It was operated as a 'diesel island', with basically just a shuttle service between Oxenholme and Windermere, using a single DMU. That is still very much the way the branch is worked today. There are a few through trains to places like Lancaster and Preston, but these are more for operational purposes than for passenger convenience.

In 2011, plans were announced to electrify the Windermere branch, on which work was to start in 2016. But due to cost and time overrun on other electrification projects these plans have now been put on hold. At present it is not clear when - or even if - the overhead wires will eventually reach Windermere. 

Signalling
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The simulation reflects the layout of the area as it was in the 1950's.
The area was controlled by two signalboxes.
Oxenholme No. 1 Box was located at the southern end of the area, and controlled the access to and from the goods loops at this end.
Oxenholme No. 2 Box was located at the south end of the platforms, and controlled the actual station area.
There were intermediate block signals between Oxenholme and Hincaster Jn, known as Sedgwick IBS; the IBS on the down line were controlled by Hincaster Jn, those on the up line by Oxenholme No. 1 Box.
There were also intermediate block signals on the down line between Oxenholme and Lambrigg Crossing, known as Peat Lane IBS; these were controlled from Oxenhome No. 2 Box. There were no intermediate signals between Oxenholme and Lambrigg Crossing on the up line.
The Intermediate Block Signals had their own distant signals which were controlled through the same lever as the main signals.

Adaptations
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Levers for No.1 Box are numbered between 101 and 124, with 100 added to the original numbers.
Signal 119 was added to control movements from the spur on the Down Sidings (lever was spare).
The switches on the northern end of the Station Siding were controlled by a small ground frame, but in the simulation levers 92 and 93 have been added to control these switches. Signal 91 was also added to control movement off the Station Siding to the Down Windermere line.
There was a second siding next to the Station Siding; access switches to this siding at the northern end were controlled by the groundframe mentioned above, access on the southern end (just short of signal 19/20) was through as set of manually controlled switches. This second siding has not been included in the simulation.

Note on Up Main platform.
The Up Main platform covered only part of the section up to signal 35/39. Short trains stopped at the platform, but long trains ran through as far as required such that the rear of the train would be at the platform, with the front of the train standing beyond the end of the platform.
This is not possible in the simulation, so the simulation is set up as if platform 1 extends all the way up to signal 35/39 and all trains will stop at the end of the platform just short of the signal.

Stopping locations
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To allow local shunt moves to be properly set up in the timetable, a number of sidings have been defined as separate stopping locations.
The used locations are :

Oxenholme      : station platforms
Up Goods       : up goods loop
Down Through   : down through siding
Down Siding    : down sidings 1 & 2
Station Siding : station Siding
Up Siding      : up Siding

Passenger trains can only have timings for Oxenholme station itself.
Freight trains, empty stock and light engines can originate, stop at or terminate at all locations.
Also see notes on Timetable Editor restrictions below.

Local instructions
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Intermediate Block Signals.
The sections between the advance starter signals (46 and 104) and the Intermediate Block Signals (44 and 106) were treated as separate blocks.
This means that the distant signals do not read through the Intermediate Block Signals but as far as the advance starter signals only. So, Down Main distant 49 reads through 48, 47 and 46 only and can be cleared if these signals are off regardless of the position of signal 44. Similarly for signals 101/102 which read through 103 and 104 only.
Also, with 44 at danger it is not required to apply 'Rule 39A' (see below) for signal 46, and again similarly for signals 106 and 104.
Because of the distance to the next box, it was usual that 'Is Line Clear' was not requested until trains were close to or were just passing signals 46 or 104 respectively.

Note that there are two distant signals 101 and 102; signal 101 is combined with both 34 and 31, signal 102 with 35 and 38. Slotting ensures only the correct actual signal is cleared. Because it is not possible to duplicate labels, the 'labels' for signals 101 and 102 are actually plain text, and operating the signal through clicking on the label is not possible for these two signals.

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 effect 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.

When coaches must be attached to another train, this is best done using the following procedure.
Shunt the coaches up to the waiting train as instructed. If the move is a 'timed' move, wait with further actions until the train has terminated and has been redescribed to a "Z" headcode.
When terminated, detach the shunt engine. Next, select the 'main' train, and use the "couple" command on this train to attach the coaches. Do NOT use the "couple" command on the coaches which are to be attached, as this may inadvertently couple these coaches back onto the shunt engine.

Fringe boxes
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Distance to fringe boxes :

Hincaster Jn      : 3m 12c 16y
Sedgwick IBS      : 1m 63c  7y

Kendal            : 2m 30c  9y

Lambrigg Crossing : 5m 15c 19y
Peat Lane IBS     : 2m 62c 16y

Distance between No.1 and No.2 box : 33c 21y

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 Main Platform    : 10
Down Main Platform  :  8
Windermere Platform :  6

Up Goods Loop       : 21
Down Through Siding : 17
Down Siding 1       : 15
Down Siding 2       : 12
Station Siding      :  6
Up Siding           : 12

Speed Restrictions
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Main lines        : 70 mph
Windermere Branch : 60 mph
Note that Up trains are restricted to 40 mph between Kendal and Oxenholme to reflect the severe gradient on this section.

All switches, sidings, spurs etc. : between 5 and 25 mph.

Train Reporting Numbers
-----------------------
Train reporting numbers only came into use in later years, and also changed over the years. See timetable information for details.

Timetable Editor restriction
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The timetable editor allows for only one route to be defined between any two locations. All routes defined between the main line locations (Hincaster Jn. to Lambrigg Crossing and Windermere, and v.v.) run through the station only.
No through routes are available through either the Up Goods loop or the Down Through Sidings.
Trains booked to stop in either the Up Goods loop or the Down Through Sidings must be defined as two separate trains, with the first train terminating in the relevant loop, and the second train originating at that location. Linking these two trains will form them into a 'through' train.

Other restrictions :
No routes are available from the 'fringe' locations (Up/Down Main, Up/Down Windermere) to and from the Docks.
No routes are available from the down 'fringe' locations to or from the Up Siding.

Note that all restrictions detailed above only apply to the use of the Timetable Editor, if the timetable is created directly as a data file these restrictions do not apply.

Opening Picture
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The opening picture shows 4-6-0 "Patriot Class" no. 45526 "Morecambe and Heysham" coming off the Up Main into Oxenholme station on the 3rd of April 1961.
The picture was taken from the northern end of the island platform, with the up and down main to the right, and the Windermere platform and station siding to the left.
The gradient on the Windermere branch lines to the left is clearly visible. The signal seen from the rear to the left of the train is signal 16/31.
The buffer stop in front of the train is on the Up Spur, the dolly just ahead of the engine is signal no. 3. Signal 34, with distant 101, can be seen sticking out above the train.
The picture was obtained through Colour-Rail (www.colourrail.com).

Acknowledgements
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Thanks to PC-Rail test team for their help in testing this simulation, and as ever to John Dennis for sorting out the very special program requirements for this particular simulation.
