Pit railway

A mine railway (or mine railroad, U.S.), sometimes pit railway, is a railway constructed to carry materials and workers in and out of a mine. Materials transported typically include ore, coal and overburden (also called variously spoils, waste, slack, culm, and tilings; all meaning waste rock). It is little remembered, but the mix of heavy and bulky materials which had to be hauled into and out of mines gave rise to the first several generations of railways, at first made of wood rails, but eventually adding protective iron, steam locomotion by fixed engines and the earliest commercial steam locomotives, all in and around the works around mines.

Main articles Wagonways and Rail History

In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug, a funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Castle in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope, and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel. The line still exists, albeit in updated form, and is possibly the oldest wagonway still to operate.

Wagonways (or tramways) are thought to have developed in Germany in the 1550s to facilitate the transport of ore tubs to and from mines, using primitive wooden rails. Such an operation was illustrated in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (Image right). This used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks, to keep it going the right way. Such a transport system was used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s. An alternative explanation derives it from the Magyar hintó - a carriage. There are possible references to their use in central Europe in the 15th century.

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