Liskeard and Caradon Railway
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The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was a mineral railway in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, which opened in 1844. It was built to carry the ores of copper and tin, and also granite, from their sources on Caradon Hill down to Moorswater for onward transport to market by way of Looe Harbour and coastal shipping. At first this was on the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal and later on the parallel Liskeard and Looe Railway.
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was exceedingly successful while mineral extraction boomed, but it was entirely dependent on that traffic and when the mines and quarries declined, the railway declined too, and eventually failed financially. In 1909 it was purchased by the Great Western Railway, but its days were already numbered, and it closed in 1917, its track materials being removed in aid of the war effort.
Traces of copper ore had been discovered in streams for some time, but the turning point was the discovery of copper ore at South Caradon in 1836 by James Clymo and Thomas Kittow. The discovery encouraged the search for the lodes nearby, and in due course these other locations were successfully producing ore. In 1839 granite also was being quarried at the Cheesewring nearby. The heavy minerals needed to be transported to remote markets, and this implied getting them to the coast, for onward transport by coastal shipping. While some material went to St Germans and to the Rover Fowey, the most convenient route was to Moorswater, where the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal had its basin, giving easy connection from there to Looe Harbour. The transport of the ore cost 4s 6d per ton to get to Moorswater; the granite from Cheesewring cost 8s.
By this time, many railways were being successfully operated elsewhere in the country, and in 1842 a committee of interested businessmen proposed a railway to bring the minerals down from Caradon. Robert Coad was the engineer of the neighbouring Canal, and he was asked to prepare an appraisal of the possibilities. His report was presented on 25 June 1842, recommending a mineral railway between the canal at Liskeard and the Caradon Mines, Cheesewring and Tokenbury. The railway was to be capable of gravity operation for the loaded direction, so that the proposed route followed a broadly constant downward gradient at the expense of directness; locomotive or horse power would convey the empty wagons upwards. The line would operate as a toll road, open to independent carriers, with the railway not acting as carrier itself.
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Wikipedia