The Morda Tramway refers to two

industrial railway 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 ra ...

s south of Oswestry, on the border between England and Wales. They connected the

coal pit Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

s around Morda to transport networks, the first to the

Montgomery Canal The Montgomery Canal ( cy, Camlas Trefaldwyn), known colloquially as "The Monty", is a partially restored canal in eastern Powys and northwest Shropshire. The canal runs from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown via Llanymy ...

and the second to the

Cambrian Railways The Cambrian Railways owned of track over a large area of mid Wales. The system was an amalgamation of a number of railways that were incorporated in 1864, 1865 and 1904. The Cambrian connected with two larger railways with connections to the ...

at Whitehaven.

History

A horse-drawn tramway running southeast was built in 1813 to serve the small coal mines of Coed-y-Go and the Bell Pits near

Morda Morda is a village on the outskirts of the town of Oswestry, Shropshire, England, located near the border of England and Wales. The village is named after the River Morda, a tributary of the River Vyrnwy. History The Morda Valley Prior to 1 ...

, Has maps and pictures about 1 mile south of Oswestry. It ran east of Sweeney Mountain, crossed the Oswestry-Welshpool road at Albridge Lane, and met the

at a wharf by Gronwen Bridge south of

Maesbury Maesbury is a small scattered community in Shropshire, England, south of the town of Oswestry, falling within the Oswestry Rural parish. The name is derived from ''maes'', meaning ''field'' or ''plain'' in Brythonic Welsh, and ''burh'', me ...

, where the canal now ends. When the large Drill colliery opened, the tramway was modernised with new rails that could handle heavier loads. By 1850 the canal had been taken over by the

Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales. The canal lies in ...

and the tramway had closed by 1879. Railway engineer

Thomas Savin Thomas Savin (1826 – 23 July 1889) was a British railway engineer who was the contractor who built many railways in Wales and the Welsh borders from 1857 to 1866. He also in some cases was an investor in such schemes. Early life Savin was born ...

Baughan 1980, page 180 saw the advantage of connecting his

to the mines at Morda. He bought the Coed y Go mines and built a

narrow-gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

railway from Whitehaven, starting near Nuttree Farm. Has maps and pictures of Savin's railway It ran northwards, west of Sweeney Mountain to the small hamlet Gronwen (this section is walkable today, including a steep bank in a shallow cutting from Sweeney Fen nature reserve opening out onto a causeway as far as Gronwen), then curved west up the brook, under Brook House bridge and then swung northeast to Coed-y-Go. The railway opened in 1861 but Savin's railways collapsed in 1866 and his mine closed in 1869.

Remains

Most of Savin's railway can be traced today. There is a fine bridge at Brook House, that has a high arch to accommodate the tall

chimney A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typic ...

s of the locomotives used on the line. It seems that there was an existing bridge taking the lane over Nant-y-Caws brook, now referred to as the Garden Bridge. Savin built a new bridge to take the lane over both railway and brook, and realigned the lane over the new bridge. Limestone blocks that supported the track can be seen in the field east of the bridge.

References

External links

www.northwalesminers.com
has details of Savin's mines {{coord , 52, 49, 32, N, 3, 3, 18, W, type:landmark_region:GB-SHR_scale:50000, display=title Railway lines opened in 1860 Railway lines closed in 1869 Narrow gauge railways in England Narrow gauge railways in Wales Closed railway lines in the West Midlands (region) Closed railway lines in Wales