An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics , or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British railway culture and management practices, they are often referred to as tramways (which are distinct from trams or streetcars, a passenger technology). Industrial railways may connect the site to public freight networks through sidings , or may be isolated (sometimes very far away from public rail or surface roads) or located entirely within a served property.
8-575: The Chasewater Railway is a former colliery railway running round the shores of Chasewater in Staffordshire , England . It is now operated as a heritage railway . The line is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) in length, contained entirely within Chasewater Country Park. The route, which forms a horse-shoe shape around the lake, passes through heathland, including a Site of Special Scientific Interest , and passes over
16-604: A 1 ⁄ 4 -mile (0.40 km) long causeway . Prior to preservation, the line was part of the network operated by the NCB to serve the coalfields of the Cannock Chase area. The exchange sidings, where the colliery line connected with the Midland Railway , were situated about 1 ⁄ 4 mile (0.40 km) north of the current Brownhills West Station. Significant changes happened in 2002/2003 caused by
24-648: A few miles/kilometers long. While these types of lines most often at some point connect via exchange sidings or transfer sidings to bulk mainline shipping railways, there are notable exceptions which are hundreds of miles long, which include the iron ore -carrying railways in Western Australia , or in China to transport coal, while in Canada there are the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and
32-486: A large number of industrial railways serve the sugarcane industry. In Colorado , the Coors Brewing Company uses its own industrial railway at the brewery both for the delivery of raw materials and for shipping the finished product. Some industrial railways are military in purpose, and serve ammunition dumps or transportation hubs and storage facilities. The world's largest industrial railway serves
40-487: The Cartier Railway . These lines can be thought of as dedicated shipment routes, where only the products of that industry require shipment between those two points, and hence a dedicated line makes more economic sense with only limited possibility of consolidation of shipment with other industries. See Compagnie de gestion de Matane Industrial railways serve many different industries. In both Australia and Cuba
48-506: The Railway was awarded The Queens Award for Voluntary Services. The buildings at Brownhills West house Chasewater Railway Museum . Volunteers are working to establish a 2 ft ( 610 mm ) gauge narrow gauge railway close to the heritage centre. 52°40′34″N 1°56′48″W / 52.6761°N 1.9467°W / 52.6761; -1.9467 Mineral railway Industrial railways were once very common, but with
56-534: The closure of the original Brownhills West station due to the building of the M6 Toll motorway. This led to the rebuilding of Brownhills West slightly north of the old station with significantly improved facilities, including a new carriage shed and heritage centre, and completion of the Chasetown section of the line (the 'Chasetown Extension Railway' between Chasewater Heaths and Chasetown Church Street). In 2016
64-490: The rise of road transport , their numbers have greatly diminished. An example of an industrial railway would transport bulk goods, for example clay from a quarry or coal from a mine, to an interchange point, called an exchange siding, with a main line railway, onwards from where it would be transported to its final destination. The main reasons for industrial railways are normally for one of two reasons: Resultantly, most industrial railways are short, usually being only
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