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Mayflower line

railway line in the UK

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ6797232
Source-derived summary

The Mayflower line is a railway branch line in the east of England that links Manningtree, on the Great Eastern Main Line, to Harwich Town. During peak times, many services connect to or from the main line and its London terminus at Liverpool Street. The Mayflower line has six stations, including the two termini, and is situated within the county of Essex.

The route is 11 miles 16 chains (18.02 km) in length from where it branches off the main line west of the town of Manningtree to its eastern terminus in Harwich. It is part of Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.07, and is classified as a London and South East commuter line. The Engineer's Line Reference for the line is MAH.

As of December 2016, passenger services on the Mayflower line are operated by Greater Anglia, which also manages all of the stations. The typical service frequency is one train per hour in each direction. The timetabled journey time between Manningtree and Harwich Town is 22 minutes.

The Mayflower line takes its name from the Pilgrim ship Mayflower, which is believed to have been built in Harwich in the 16th century. Harwich was also home to the ship's captain and part-owner, Christopher Jones.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mayflower line” as railway line in the UK. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Mayflower, line and railway can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as railway line in the UK. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6797232. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Mayflower line primary sources, Mayflower line archive and Mayflower research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mayflower line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.