Liskeard and Caradon Railway
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was a British railway company based in Cornwall in England .
history
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway (LCR) was founded by the area mine owners and the owners of the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal on June 27, 1843. It improved the transport of copper from the mines on Caradon Hill to the canal. The standard gauge line, completed on November 28, 1844 between Moorswater and South Caradon, had a continuous gradient. The freight cars drove downhill under the force of gravity. The empty or coal-filled freight wagons were pulled back uphill by horses. In March 1846 the route was extended to the granite quarry in Cheesewring.
From 1858 the Kilmar Railway operated the Cheesewring granite quarries, which led to the quarries at Bearah Tor and Kilmar Tor . In 1879 the line was purchased. With the decline of the quarries, the route was closed in 1882. A planned extension of the line to Launceston was not implemented. In 1877 the route to Cheesewring was carried around Caradon Hill with the Kilmar Junction Railway . This enabled the cable car section at Gonamena to be abandoned.
From 1862 the company operated the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal relieving the Liskeard and Looe Railway (LLR). Copper mining was already becoming too expensive by the end of the 1880s. It was finally discontinued around 1900. In 1901 the LCR was leased from the LLR. In 1909 the Great Western Railway took over the company. After mining ceased, the line was dismantled in 1917 as war needs.
Passenger traffic was never carried out. However, it was possible to ride on the freight wagon for a small fee for the transport of luggage or the umbrella.
Locomotives
The use of locomotives was not approved until 1860. The company then procured a used triple-coupled tank locomotive. This was named LISKEARD . In 1862, 1865 and 1869 the three-coupled tank locomotives CARADON , CHEESEWRING and KILMAR were delivered by Gilkes Wilson and Company and Hopkins Gilkes and Company, respectively. In 1904 Andrew Barclay and Company delivered the 1'B tank locomotive LADY MARGARET .
literature
- Christopher Awdry: Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies . Stephens, Wellingborough 1990, ISBN 1-85260-049-7 .
- Muriel Vivienne Searle: Lost lines: an anthology of Britain's lost railways . Taylor & Francis, 1982, ISBN 978-0-904568-41-7 .
