NEW FEBRUARY 2016.  The first railway to Cromer was the GER line from Norwich in 1877. The Eastern and Midlands Railway, soon to become the Midland and Great Northern, opened their competing branch from Melton Constable to Cromer Beach ten years later. Both companies saw huge potential in opening up the section of the coast around Mundesley to holiday development. Neither of them could afford this on their own, but both sensed they would reap a benefit if despite being competitors they worked on a scheme together. Thus the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway opened in 1906.

The result was a complicated network of lines around Cromer which was less than straightforward to operate.  This file looks at things from the Great Eastern's viewpoint, and concentrates on Cromer Junction just outside their station.  Here a new spur now branched off to access the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint and thence onward over the M&GN to Sheringham (to where the GER were granted running powers). The GER issued a series of instructions as to how trains were to be worked at that junction, and the one dated October 1908 is given here in all its detail. This is accompanied by a signalling diagram for Cromer Junction box, dated for its opening in 1906, and a photograph of the trackwork there as it was in 1911.

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