Furzebrook Railway
Swanage Railway overpass.
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| Locale | England |
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| Dates of operation | c.1840–1957 |
| Track gauge | c.4 ft (1,219 mm) (1840) 2 ft 8 in (813 mm) (1866) |
| Length | 3.5 miles (5.6 km) |
| Headquarters | Furzebrook |
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The Furzebrook Railway, also known as the Pike Brothers' Tramway, was a narrow gauge industrial railway on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. It was built by the Pike Brothers, to take Purbeck Ball Clay from their clay pits near Furzebrook and West Creech to a wharf at Ridge on the River Frome.
Clay Merchant Joseph Pike created his firm around 1760 in Chudleigh in Devon, but it was his son William Pike (born 1762) who started a branch of the firm in Purbeck. He signed a contract with Wedgwood in 1791. Originally the output was taken by horse to Wareham, from where it was taken by barge on the River Frome to Poole Harbour. William's sons (William Joseph and John William) took over the business and formed the company as Pike Bros. Wedgwood's success increased demand so much that the horses struggled to keep pace. The nearest competitor, Benjamin Fayle at nearby Norden, had built Dorset's first railway - the Middlebere Plateway to take his clay to the south shore of Poole Harbour in 1806. Around 1840 the Pike Brothers William Joseph and John William followed suit by building the Furzebrook Railway to Ridge, about half a mile downstream from Wareham. The line was engineered with a continual downhill gradient, and loaded clay wagons were run by gravity, with the empty wagons being hauled back by horses. To facilitate this, some wagons were equipped with sledge brakes acting directly on the rail. The gauge of the railway as built is believed to be around 4 ft (1,219 mm).
William Joseph Pike met with George Stephenson in Birmingham and became convinced that way forward lay in the excellent economics of steam railways. In 1865 the Pike Brothers purchased the first steam locomotive (Primus) and by this date the gauge had been narrowed to 2 ft 8 in (813 mm). By this time, the original workings at the "Blue Pool" in Furzebrook were worked out, and the railway was diverted to the west at its upper end, and extended with several branches serving clay pits at Povington, Cotness, Greenspecks and Creech Grange.
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Wikipedia