Surrey Iron Railway

Surrey Iron Railway
Watercolour showing the Surrey Iron Railway, the first public railway company , passing Chipstead Valley Road, Surrey.
Locale	England
Dates of operation	1803–1846
Track gauge	4 ft 2 in (1,270 mm)
Length	9 miles (14 km)
Headquarters	Wandsworth

The Surrey Iron Railway (SIR) was a horse drawn plateway whose width approximated to a standard gauge railway that linked the former Surrey towns of Wandsworth and Croydon via Mitcham (all now suburbs of south London). It was constructed in the early years of the 19th century having been established by Act of Parliament in 1801, opening on 26 July 1803.

Origins

Short, publicly-subscribed plateways, like that to the Caldon Low quarries and the Little Eaton Gangway, had already been built. However, they were all part of canal projects. The original plan, first mooted in 1799, had been for a canal, but to take the necessary water from the streams in the area would have deprived the many water-powered mills and factories. This was the world's first railway to be publicly subscribed by Act of Parliament as a railway throughout.

Operation

It was horse-drawn, dedicated to goods. It was essentially a form of turnpike as users had to provide their own wagons and horses, paying a fee for use of the plateway (tramroad). This is similar to the modern arrangement under which a Train operating company pays track access charges to Network Rail. The plates or rails on which the wagons rolled were laid 4 ft 2" apart, and were themselves 4" wide, fitting the standard 5 ft rutway widths. The gauge of each wagon was designed to be 4ft6" apart, which, the wheels themselves being no less than 2"in width, was the direct predecessor^{[citation needed]} to the standard gauge railway of 4ft8.5"

Route

The nine-mile route followed the shallow valley of the River Wandle, then heavily industrialised with numerous factories and mills, from the River Thames at Wandsworth southwards to Croydon, at what is now Reeves Corner. A short branch also ran from Mitcham to Hackbridge. The line was subsequently extended as the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway through Purley and Coulsdon to serve quarries near Merstham, opened 1805, closed 1838.

Notice of tolls dated 1804.

History

William Jessop was chief engineer of the latter venture only and the flat alignment of his route proved more long-lasting than the railway. The advent of faster and more powerful steam locomotives spelled the end for horse-drawn railways. In 1823, William James, a powerful shareholder in the SIR, tried to persuade George Stephenson to supply a locomotive for the line. However Stephenson realised that the cast-iron plateway could not support the weight of a steam locomotive and declined the offer. The SIR closed in 1846. Part of the route was reopened in 1855 as the West Croydon to Wimbledon Line, part of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1856. Much of the route remains in use by Tramlink.

See also

• Timeline of railway history
• Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr Railway

Further reading

• Eric Shaw and Kevin Leyden The Iron Railways of the Wandle Valley: a Bi-Centennial Anniversary Guide Wandle Industrial Museum, 2003, ISBN 978-0953956029
• Peter Burgess, The Use of Plate Rails in the Godstone Firestone Quarries, in Proceedings of the Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society Ltd., Vol.18, Part 4, March,1994.
• E.N.Montague, Wheels of the Surrey Iron Railway found at Mitcham, in Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol.68, 1971.
• 'Retracing the First Public Railway' by Derek A. Bayliss, 1981
• 'Surrey Iron Railway and Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, Notes On The Surrey Iron Railway'by Peter Mcgow, November 2001,unpublished, but see external links below

Modern plaque in Rotary Field, Purley, commemorating the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway

External links

• 200th anniversary commemoration
• Surrey Iron Railway
• Route of the Surrey Iron Railway and Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway
• The Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway crossing the bridge over Chipstead Valley Road, Coulsdon, 1823
• Surrey Iron Railway
• The Surrey Iron Railway
• Plaque 9 - Surrey Iron Railway Purley Library
• 'Surrey Iron Railway and Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, Notes On The Surrey Iron Railway'by Peter Mcgow, November 2001