East Cornwall Mineral Railway
1863 Start of construction of the Tamar, Kit Hill and Callington Railway .
1872 The line was completed as the East Cornwall Minerals Railway. The line was a 3ft 6in narrow gauge industrial railway which connected the mines in the Kit Hill-Gunnislake area with the port of Calstock. The railway above Calstock (worked by two steam locomotives) was connected to the Calstock quays and the River Tamar by a rope-worked single track incline with a passing loop at its mid-way point. The line was 7.5 miles long running from Kelly Bray to Calstock. There were several branches serving copper, tin and arsenic mines and quarries.
1883 An Act of Parliament authorised the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway to take over the line and this was completed in 1894.
1894 Dual gauged line by addition of standard gauge track.
1901 Taken over by the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway.
1907 The Calstock viaduct was built; subsequently the Calstock incline was abandoned and a 15-ton wagon lift was constructed against one of the viaduct piers. This was dismantled and sold for scrap in 1934.
1908 Converted to single gauge
See Also
Sources of Information
- Cornish Mining [1]
- [] Wikipedia