Silkstone Waggonway

[1] In 1808, the canal company's Annual General Meeting approved a plan to build a waggonway,[2] and they applied to Parliament for an Act authorising the construction of a horse-drawn railway from Silkstone Cross to the canal's southern terminus at Barnby Basin.

The success of the waggonway as a feeder to the canal prompted the construction of furnaces at Low Mill, and the opening of the Waterloo Colliery.

[3] In June 1847, the canal company entered into an agreement to sell the waggonway to the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway.

It was built with stone block sleepers, probably supplied from local quarries owned by Walter Spencer Stanhope.

Rough stones were packed around the sleepers to hold them in place, with a layer of ash covering them to make a suitable surface for the horses to walk on.

Trackwork from the waggonway on display at the LNER museum at York in 1927
Barnby Basin in 1850, showing the Silkstone Waggonway on the left
Sketch of the U-shaped track used in the Silkstone Waggonway, 1809