Coleford Railway

The Coleford Railway was a railway company that constructed a short railway from near Monmouth to Coleford, close to the Forest of Dean. The company was sponsored by the Great Western Railway. It was built on part of the course of the Monmouth Railway, a horse-operated plateway, and it was intended that its primary business would be the conveyance of minerals and forest products from the Forest of Dean.

The line was built on the standard gauge and was 5 miles 20 chains in length. It opened on 1 September 1883, and was worked by the GWR, which soon absorbed it.

It was never commercially successful, and it closed on 1 January 1917.

The Forest of Dean was rich in minerals, in particular coal and iron, and some tin and stone. Mineral extraction had been practised for centuries, and the Free Miners had certain exclusive rights. However this militated against the involvement of larger external companies and modernisation and industrialisation were discouraged. Coupled with the poor communications in the Forest before the advent of modern railways, this led to high costs and poor competitiveness.

Coleford was an important location as a focal point for western access to the minerals of the Forest of Dean. However the construction of the Coleford Railway, from Monmouth, came late after a series of other initiatives.

A number of short tramways were built to connect individual mines to onward transport, and in 1810 the Monmouth Railway was authorised by Act of Parliament to build a plateway between mines east of Coleford and May Hill at Monmouth. Powers were given to cross the River Wye at Monmouth and at Redbrook, although these were never taken up. The Monmouth Railway was to be a 3 ft 6in gauge plateway, on which ordinary wagons with plain wheels could run. The Company would not itself operate trains; it was to be a toll road, taking a toll charge from independent carriers who used it. It opened in stages between 1812 and 1817.

There were lengthy branches east of Coleford, serving collieries and pits. West of Coleford there were a tunnel and two rope-worked inclined planes, and the line terminated at Redbrook, adjacent to the River Wye, and at May Hill, on the east side of the Wye at Monmouth.

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