Brampton Railway

The remainder became dedicated to serving collieries and other mineral workings, and was successively extended in the remote hills south of Brampton.

In the seventeenth century and subsequently the Earls of Carlisle developed the workings, and it appears that by 1775 wooden railways were in use on Tindale Fell for short-distance movement of small wagons.

Dendy Marshall (1971) explains: A railway of 5½ miles in length was made in 1775, from the Earl of Carlisle's colliery at Tindale Fell to Brampton.

[2]Lee disagrees with this account: Mr. Dendy Marshall ... quotes no authority for the assertion, and the present writer’s researches tend strongly to indicate that the line through to Brampton was built more than two decades later.

There were probably wooden wagonways at Tindale Fell colliery as early as 1775, but it seems clear that the through line to Brampton was built by the Earl of Carlisle about 1798.

[1]A through line to Brampton was constructed in 1798, reaching the staithes there, and the first wagon of coal was brought down from Tindale Fell colliery in April 1799.

[3] Thompson wrote (in 1900): "I doubt if anyone now living can say accurately when this tram road was made; it is marked on old maps as far back I believe as 1774, and was probably in existence long before that.

Quoting a letter from James Thompson ("the Colliery Agent of the Earl of Carlisle") he says that "apprehensions of lamination and exfoliation are entirely groundless.

Thompson's letter of 7 December 1824 is reproduced, saying: ... having under my care a Rail-way, whereon several Miles both of Cast and Wrought Iron Rails are used, I have sent you herewith a Piece of the latter, which has been laid sixteen Years, and certainly has no Appearance of Lamination...

The railway was extended east from Tindale Fell to the Midgeholme pithead, and a branch of three miles was laid to Blacksyke, with a spur to serve a limestone quarry.

[3][1] For decades there had been consideration of linking Newcastle and Carlisle, representing the North Sea and the Solway Firth, by some improved means of transport.

[9] In those few days his traffic had used gravitation from Milton down to Carlisle, the horses riding in dandy carts, and hauling the empty wagons back.

[13] W. B. Thompson described the working: The present line falls with a very severe gradient towards the town of Brampton, and the practice used to be to allow the wagons full of coal to run down by gravity, and then, when the load had been discharged, to draw them back empty by horses.

There was not a sufficient number of horses employed to deal with the whole of the traffic, so that a gradual accumulation of wagons at the Brampton terminus took place, and when the sidings were full a locomotive was sent down to clear the empties all away.It is perhaps worth adding that in spite of the absence of signals, continuous brakes, interlocking, and all other precautions dear to the Board of Trade, the passenger traffic was carried on all those years practically without an accident of any kind, the only case in which I can recall a passenger having received injury being one in which the injury was entirely attributable to his own negligence.

The colliery was not operated by Thompson and Sons, but the firm decided to extend their line from Midgeholme to Lambley, and join the N&CR there.

[3] Brampton was an important township, with a population of about 3,500 at this time[15] and as a market town it received a considerable volume of goods and visitors.

In 1875, a deputation [had] waited upon the directors [of the North Eastern Railway] and endeavoured to induce them to make a branch line into Brampton...

In October however, a letter was received stating that the directors were not able to come to the conclusion that it was desirable for the company to undertake the construction of a branch line...

[17]The Thompson firm decided to respond for an agricultural fair on 13 November 1879 by hiring in a North Eastern Railway steam locomotive and carriages.

The Board of Trade inspector duly visited and required certain improvements; there was a 1 in 30 gradient on the branch, and there was no signalling or any normal railway safety system.

In the final years of the eighteenth century the mineral output of the area declined steeply, eventually only Roachburn colliery continuing in operation.

In 1908, there was an inundation at Roachburn killing three men; the tragedy affected the health of the surviving owner of Thompson and Sons, and he decided to close the business down.

[3][12] In 1927, the Kirkhouse Brick and Tile Works started production; the operation required shale for the firing and this was brought in from Forest Head, providing more business for the railway.

At this time the Prior and Minthill drifts were producing coal, as was Gairs, but the Tindale Granite Company was the most useful customer of the railway.

There were positive moves at Denton Fell and New Venture, and the company drove several new drifts at Midgeholme, which brought revitalised traffic to that end of the line from 1935; at the same time the Gairs was becoming worked out.

As owner of the railway it set rates for the conveyance of shale for the Kirkhouse brickworks, and it decided to increase these substantially; this led to the immediate transfer of the traffic to road, and the portion of the Blacksyke branch accordingly became moribund.

Many of the pits in the area declined, water inundation being a particular problem, and the National Coal Board increasingly used road transport to other railheads.