Parkhouse Mineral Railway near Furness Abbey, North Lancashire

Waggon of the Parkhouse Mineral Railway near Furness Abbey, North Lancashire

Trestle bridge of the Parkhouse Mineral Railway near Furness Abbey, North Lancashire

The Yarlside Iron Mines tramway or Parkhouse Mineral Railway was built as a one-mile (1.6 km) long innovative railway from the Parkhouse Haematite Ore Mines to the

Roose railway station Roose is a railway station on the Furness Line, which runs between and . The station, situated east of Barrow-in-Furness, serves the suburb of Roose in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains. ...

on the

Furness Railway The Furness Railway (Furness) was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England. History Formation In the early 1840s, the owners of iron ore mines in the Furness district of Lancashire became interested i ...

, then in

North Lancashire North Lancashire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was represented by two Members of Parliament. The constituency was created by the Great Reform Act of 1832 by the splitting of Lancas ...

, now in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England. Similar to a

monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...

, it had stabilising side rollers, invented and patented by

John Barraclough Fell John Barraclough Fell (1815 – 18 October 1902) was an English railway engineer and inventor of the Fell mountain railway system. Fell spent the early part of his life in London, living with his parents. About 1835 he moved with them to ...

. The Yarlside area near

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...

served by this railway is unrelated to

Yarlside Yarlside is a hill in the Howgill Fells, Cumbria (historically Westmorland), England. This fell is not to be confused with the Yarlside area near Barrow-in-Furness, once served by the Yarlside Iron Mines tramway. That lies to the west. Nor sh ...

Fell, which is to the east.

History

Yarlside Iron Mines tramway

John Barraclough Fell designed and built in 1868 the original ''Yarlside Iron Mines tramway'' as a horse drawn monorail from an exchange siding at the Furness Railway to the Yarlside Iron Mines.Martin and Jean Norgate
Yarlside Iron Mines tramway, other name: Parkhouse Mineral Railway
Geography Department, Portsmouth University, 2014.

Parkhouse Tramway

Two years later, in 1870, John Barraclough Fell replaced it with another experimental narrow gauge railway line, dubbed the ''Parkhouse Tramway'', named after the Parkhouse Farm west of the mines. This had a gauge of and had also a very low centre of gravity and stabilising side rollers on a central beam consisting of two trusses. It was driven by a stationary engine and endless wire rope. It could transport up to 100,000 tons per year. The waggons were each loaded with one ton of iron ore, and small carriages with eight passengers were run with perfect steadiness and safety at a speed of 15 to 20 miles per hour. The line became a standard gauge railway in 1873.

History

Yarlside Iron Mines tramway

Parkhouse Tramway

See also

References

Further reading