Lostwithiel and Fowey Railway
| Locale | United Kingdom |
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| Dates of operation | 1869–1880 |
| Successor | Cornwall Minerals Railway |
| Track gauge | 7 ft (2,134 mm) |
| Length | 4.75 miles (7.64 km) |
| Headquarters | Par, Cornwall |
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The Lostwithiel and Fowey Railway opened in 1869 as a broad gauge railway linking the port of Fowey in Cornwall with the Cornish Main Line at Lostwithiel. Its main traffic was china clay. The company ran into financial difficulties and closed in 1880, but the line was purchased by the Cornwall Minerals Railway and reopened in 1895.
A passenger service operated, but it was withdrawn in 1965, and the line reverted to the conveyance of china clay; it remains open for that traffic at the present day.
Promoters of an independent company conducted negotiations with the Cornwall Railway in 1861, regarding the construction of a branch line from that railway at Lostwithiel to a location at Caffamill Pill, Fowey, where deep water berthing was available for shipping. The route would run alongside the River Fowey and so would have gentle gradients and few engineering problems, apart from some bridges across small tributary rivers; new jetties were to be built at Carne Point, a short distance north of Fowey.
An Act of Parliament was obtained on 30 June 1862, and the Lostwithiel and Fowey Railway was incorporated, with capital of £30,000. The railway was to be 5 miles and 15 chains (8.4 km) in length. Money proved difficult to come by, and there was some delay in construction, and the line eventually opened on 1 June 1869, on the broad gauge. It did not carry passengers, and it was worked by the Cornwall Railway Joint Committee. There were close links with the Newquay and Cornwall Junction Railway; some directors and officers served both companies, and offices were in a shared building at Par.
The principal traffic was expected to be china clay and other minerals from the area around St Austell, but the financial performance of the Company was dependent on the buoyancy of the mining activity. Difficult trading conditions were followed by the opening of a more direct route to Fowey by the Cornwall Minerals Railway on 1 June 1874, and the two companies engaged in a bitter price war.
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