Wagonway - WikiHQ

thumb|[[Benjamin Outram's Little Eaton Gangway in July 1908 with the last train of loaded coal wagons arriving.]]

A wagonway (or waggonway; also known as a horse-drawn tramway, horse-drawn railway, or horse-drawn railroad) was a method of railway transportation that preceded the steam locomotive and used horses to haul wagons. The terms plateway and tramway were also used. The advantage of wagonways was that far heavier loads could be transported with the same power compared to horse haulage along roads.

Ancient systems

The earliest evidence is of the long Diolkos paved trackway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from leaving the intended route. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD.

Wooden rails

thumb|[[Minecart shown in De Re Metallica (1556). The guide pin fits in a groove between two wooden planks.]]

Such an operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (image left) in his work De re metallica. This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks.

thumb|[[Minecart from 16th century, found in Transylvania]]

Around 1568, German miners working in the Mines Royal near Keswick used such a system. Archaeological work at the Mines Royal site at Caldbeck in the English Lake District confirmed the use of "hunds".

In 1610, Beaumont introduced wooden waggonways as a form of coal transport in South East Northumberland, waggons with one horse were used to carry coals from the local pits to the port on the River Blyth. From 1692 to 1709, the Plessey Waggonway was constructed from Plessey to Blyth, following the route of Plessey Road, where it derives its name. It was constructed of a double-line of beech rails on oak sleepers. The waggons had wooden wheels with nails driven into them to reduce wear on the wheels.

The Middleton Railway in Leeds, which was built in 1758 as a wagonway, later became the world's first operational railway (other than funiculars), albeit in an upgraded form. In 1764, the first railway in America was built in Lewiston, New York as a wagonway.

At Bersham Ironworks records exist from 1757-1759 of contracts to lay a railroad from coal and iron pits to the works, and in 1991 of track were excavated at the works including a set of points. The track was made with oak sleepers and ash rails, and was gauge.

Wagonways improved coal transport by allowing one horse to deliver between of coal per run an approximate fourfold increase. Wagonways were usually designed to carry the fully loaded wagons downhill to a canal or boat dock and then return the empty wagons back to the mine.

Metal rails

Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rails were made of wood, were a few inches wide and were fastened end to end, on logs of wood or "sleepers", placed crosswise at intervals of two or three feet. In time, it became common to cover them with a thin flat sheathing or "plating" of iron, in order to add to their life and reduce friction. This caused more wear on the wooden rollers of the wagons and towards the middle of the 18th century, led to the introduction of iron wheels. However, the iron sheathing was not strong enough to resist buckling under the passage of the loaded wagons, so rails made wholly of iron were invented. which were found to facilitate passage and diminish expenses. As a result, in 1767, they began to make cast iron rails. These were probably long, with four projecting ears or lugs by to enable them to be fixed to the sleepers. The rails were wide and thick. Later, descriptions also refer to rails long and only wide.

Plateways, flangeways

thumb|right|A replica of a "Little Eaton Tramway" wagon, the tracks are plateways

A later system involved L-shaped iron rails or plates, each long and wide, having on the inner side an upright ledge or flange, high at the centre and tapering to at the ends, for the purpose of keeping the flat wheels on the track. Subsequently, to increase strength, a similar flange might be added below the rail. In 1821 when a wagonway was proposed to connect the mines at West Durham, Darlington and the River Tees at Stockton, George Stephenson successfully argued that horse-drawn wagonways were obsolete and a steam-powered railway could carry 50 times as much coal. In 1825 he built the locomotive Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in England's northeast, which became the world's first public steam railway in 1825, via both horse power and steam power on different runs.

Stationary steam engines for mining were generally available around the middle of the 18th century. Wagonways and steam-powered railways had steep uphill sections and would employ a cable powered by a stationary steam engine to work the inclined sections. British troops in Lewiston, New York used a cable wagonway to move supplies to bases before the American Revolutionary War. The Stockton and Darlington had two inclined sections powered by cable. The transition from a wagonway to a fully steam-powered railway was gradual. Railways up to the 1830s that were steam-powered often made runs with horses when the steam locomotives were unavailable. Even in the steam age, it was convenient to use horses in station yards to shunt wagons from one place to another. Horses do not need lengthy times to raise steam in the boiler, and can take shortcuts from one siding to another. At Hamley Bridge tenders were called for the supply of horses, in part because normal railway staff lacked horse handling skills.

Pole road

thumb|Perdido, a steam pole road locomotive

Wooden rails continued to be used for temporary railroads into the twentieth century. Some timber harvesting companies in the southeastern United States created pole roads using unmarketable logs, which were effectively free, to create tracks at a cost of between $100 and $500 per mile. Permanence was not an issue, as the lumberjacks moved on to other stands of timber as each area was cleared. At least one such pole road system reportedly extended some .

Typically the pole rails were logs of diameter, laid parallel directly on the ground without sleepers, and joined end-to-end with lap joints and wooden pegs. Rolling stock typically had wheels either with concave rims that hugged the top of the pole rails, or un-flanged wheels with separate guide wheels running against the side of each rail. Steam traction engines and some purpose-built locomotives were successfully used for hauling trains of logs. For example, Perdido was built by Adams & Price Locomotive and Machinery Works of Nashville, Tennessee in 1885 for the Wallace, Sanford and Company sawmill at Williams Station, Alabama, where it hauled up to seven cars of 3 or 4 logs each. This was a geared engine (4.5 to 1 gear ratio), driving four individually-rotating concave-rim wheels on stationary axles via chain drives; powerful but running less than .

Decline

As steam power gradually replaced horse power throughout the 19th century, the term "wagonway" became obsolete and was superseded by the term "railway". , very few horse or cable freight railways are operating, notable examples being the cable-hauled St Michael's Mount Tramway and the Reisszug, which has been in continuous operation since around 1900. A few passenger lines continue to operate, including the horse-hauled Douglas Bay Horse Tramway and the cable-hauled San Francisco cable cars.

References

Bibliography

Gwyn, David. The coming of the railway: a new global history.Yale University Press, 2023

External links

Description and photographs of the archaeological excavation of a wooden waggonway on the site of Lambton Coke Works in North East England.
The two and a half mile long Dafen (Llanelli) railway opened in 1833.