Butterley Gangroad

The Butterley Gangroad was an early tramway in Derbyshire of approximately 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge, which linked Hilt's Quarry and other limestone quarries at Crich with the Cromford Canal at Bullbridge.

[1][2] The first railway project of Derbyshire civil engineer Benjamin Outram (1764–1805), the line was originally a horse-drawn and gravity-driven plateway, a form of tramway that Outram popularised.

[1][3][4] Unlike modern edgeways, where flanges on the wheel guide it along the track, plateways used L-shaped rails where a flange on the rail guided the wheels.

The line was constructed in 1793, with the construction of Fritchley Tunnel, now believed to be the world's oldest railway tunnel,[3] being required to go under a road junction at Fritchley.

In the 1840s, upgrading took place to accommodate steam locomotives, and part of the original line was moved.