The Edge Hill Light Railway was a

standard-gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

light railway A light railway is a Rail transport, railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail": it uses lighter-weight track, and may have more Grade (slope), steep gradients and Minimum railway curve radius, tight curves to ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England. It was designed to carry

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be c ...

from Edge Hill Quarries to

Burton Dassett Burton Dassett is a parish and deserted medieval village, shrunken medieval village in the Stratford-on-Avon District, Stratford-upon-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The population (including the village of Knightcote) of the civil pari ...

, where a junction was made with the

Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) was a railway company in the southern Midlands of England, formed at the beginning of 1909 by the merger of three earlier companies: *the ''East and West Junction Railway'', *the ''E ...

. It was never officially opened, but began operating in 1922.

Route

Edge Hill Light Railway embankment - geograph

The line was long in two sections linked by a cable-worked incline with a gradient of 1 in 6 (16%). As the quarry was at the top of the incline, the incline could be worked as self-acting: the weight of full ore wagons descending was sufficient to draw the empties back up.

History

The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway proposed a branch line to the ironstone quarries at Edge Hill during the First World War, and a subsidiary company, the Edge Hill Light Railway was set up to build it, with Colonel Stephens appointed as the company's engineer. Operations began in 1922 but within three years it was found that the iron ore deposits were uneconomic, and the line ceased operating in 1925. The rails were not dismantled until 1935 and at least one of the locomotives was not cut up until 1946. In 1942, permanent way from the lower portion of the line was requisitioned for the construction of the army depot now known as MoD Kineton. This had the effect of isolating the line, and the remaining stock at the top of the incline, from the main line and so they survived there until 1946.

Locomotives

Goods stock

References

External links