The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was a mineral railway in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, which opened in 1844 and closed in 1917. Its neighbour, the Liskeard and Looe Railway, opened in 1860 and is still operating as the Looe Valley Line.
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Caradon Hill was once an important source of minerals,including copper, tin, lead and granite. The minerals were carried by packhorse from the mines to a canal basin at Moorswater, near Liskeard. Here, they were loaded into barges and carried down the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal (opened 1828) to the coastal seaport of Looe.
By 1840, the traffic was growing beyond the capacity of the packhorses. It was impossible to extend the canal northwards because of the hilly terrain so a railway was the obvious solution. The Liskeard and Caradon Railway (LCR) was authorised by an Act of Parliament of 27 June 1843 and the first stage, from Moorswater to the South Caradon Mine was opened in November 1844. A branch to Cheesewring Quarry was opened in March 1846. The original track used T-section rail in chairs, fixed to stone blocks. It was laid to standard gauge (4ft 8½in) although there was, at the time, no prospect of a link-up with any other standard-gauge system. The route of the line went up the valley from Moorswater and close to Wood Hill manor, Tremabe, Tremar, St Cleer and Darite to the South Caradon mine (just North of Crows Nest).
The Act of 1843 prohibited the use of locomotives on pain of a fifty pound fine, so the line was worked by gravity and horsepower. It was graded at about 1 in 60 (1.7%) for most of its length and the wagons came down by gravity and were hauled back by horses. On the downhill journey the wagons would be loaded with the products of the mines and quarries. On the uphill one they would carry coal to power the steam engines which pumped water out of the mines to prevent flooding.
So successful was the railway that the canal could not cope with the traffic and another railway was needed. The Liskeard and Looe Railway (LLR) was authorised by an Act of 11 May 1858 and opened in December 1860. This started from an end-on junction with the Liskeard and Caradon Railway at Moorswater and then ran parallel to the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal and the river to the quayside at Looe.
Also in 1860 the use of steam locomotives was authorised. The first one was hired from James Murphy, contractor, of Newport, South Wales and a new locomotive was purchased in 1862, followed by several others. See Locomotives below for further details.
A further Act of 15 May 1860 authorised various improvements and extensions. These included a branch from Crows Nest (near South Caradon Mine) eastwards to Tokenbury Corner and the purchase or lease of the Kilmar Railway. The Kilmar Railway was owned by the Cheesewring Granite Company. It had been built in the late 1850s and served quarries north of the Cheesewring at Kilmar Tor and Bearah Tor. The purchase of the Kilmar Railway was not completed until 1876.
An Act of 12 August 1882 authorised a further extension. This ran first north from Tokenbury Corner, then west, to link up with the former Kilmar Railway near South Phoenix mine. It enabled trains for the Cheesewring quarries and Phoenix mines to bypass the Gonamena section, which was very steeply graded. Ambitious plans, authorised in 1882 and 1884, would have extended the line to Trewint and Launceston but, apart from a couple of miles of earthworks, nothing came of these plans.
The LCR had no official powers to carry passengers but did carry them, in open wagons, by using a legal loophole. The passengers travelled free, but a charge was made for the carriage of their hats, coats and parcels. The LLR, by contrast, did obtain the necessary powers and passenger services between Moorswater and Looe began on 11 September 1879, using four-wheel coaches.
The legal relationship between the Liskeard and Caradon and Liskeard and Looe Railways was complicated. Although they were separate companies they co-operated very closely and shared locomotives and rolling stock. By the mid-1880s, the LCR's fortunes were declining because of falling mineral traffic, while those of the LLR were rising because the growth of tourism led to an increasing number of passengers. The LCR's plight continued to worsen and, in 1895, the LLR took over the working of the LCR.
As early as 1877 there were plans for a link with the Cornwall Railway (amalgamated with the Great Western Railway in 1889) but there were two problems. First, the Cornwall Railway was 7 ft 0 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge. Secondly, it crossed 150 feet (46 m) above its neighbour on the Moorswater viaduct. In 1892, the GWR in Cornwall was converted to standard gauge so one obstacle was removed. After several abortive attempts, construction work began, in 1898, on a link between the LLR and the GWR. This link, nearly two miles long and describing almost a complete circle, runs from Coombe Junction (near Moorswater) on the LLR to Liskeard (GWR) station. It was completed in 1901.
In 1909 the GWR took over the working of both the LCR and the LLR. Because of the decline in mineral traffic the LCR's days were numbered. It closed on 1 January 1917 and, by April that year, most of the rails had been lifted.
The LLR lives on. It was amalgamated with the GWR at the grouping in 1923 and passed to British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. It is now operated by First Great Western and has been granted community railway status. It is marketed by them in association with the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership as the Looe Valley Line.
After 1909, various GWR locomotives began to appear on the line, including 1901 and 2021 class 0-6-0PT and, later, 2-6-2T of classes 4400 and 4500. See Locomotives of the Great Western Railway.