Privately Owned Freight Railways

Typical private train working at a colliery in the 1970s
(Photo: Les Richardson)

Once upon a time, every large factory from a steelworks to a brewery, every mine or quarry, every harbour and every military base, had its own internal railway network for transfer of materials around the site and to and from the nearest main line line railway. Such networks are now very few and far between; other modes of internal transport are more flexible and better suited to the demands of modern industry. Only a very few specialized private networks remain, for example for shifting extra heavy loads at certain steelworks.

By contrast, there are still hundreds of private sidings active throughout the national network, allowing easy access to rail for manufacturers, distributors and end users of all varieties. Moreover, new sidings are being added from time to time. The Network Rail website includes a wealth of detailed information about rail freight including a graphic Route Directory and lists of private sidings.

Private freight lines often ventured away from the premises of their owners. These ranged from a few yards between factory sites, such as the complex network of brewery lines that once criss-crossed the streets of Burton-upon-Trent, to lines running many miles across country from a mine or quarry to the nearest main line railway. The longest private freight line in Britain is that from Crediton to Meldon Quarry in Devon, carrying stone traffic from the Aggregate Industries quarry at Meldon.

Lafarge Cement owns a fascinating rural line from their Hope Works in Derbyshire to exchange sidings on the Network Rail Sheffield to Manchester line. In addition to shunting locomotives they have several main line types used for trip working to and from the sidings. Follow this link for a detailed article on the line: Hope Cement Works Railway

In 2004, Keir Minerals Ltd opened a new private line serving their Greenburn opencast mine in East Ayrshire.

While the Hope and Greenburn lines are purely for freight traffic, the Meldon Quarry line is also used by the tourist passenger service of the Dartmoor Railway. In contrast, the Great Central Railway (Nottingham) owns its own track but carries a regular freight service serving the British Gypsum works at East Leake. At present, this is the only preserved railway with regular freight traffic, but other lines see occasional freight use; for example, the Midland Railway has carried loads for Butterley Engineering (the manufacturers of the Falkirk Wheel and, historically, the ironwork for St Pancras trainshed).

The East Lancashire Railway also has proposals for a regular freight service at some future date, with through trains to and from continental Europe linking with an inland port in the Bury area.

© 2000-2005 Glyn Williams