Liskeard and Caradon Railway | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway (Cornish: Hyns-horn Lyskerrys ha Karn) was a mineral railway in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, which opened in 1844. It was built to carry the ores of copper and tin, and also granite, from their sources on Caradon Hill down to Moorswater for onward transport to market by way of Looe Harbour and coastal shipping. At first this was on the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal and later on the parallel Liskeard and Looe Railway.
The Liskeard and Caradon Railway was exceedingly successful while mineral extraction boomed, but it was entirely dependent on that traffic and when the mines and quarries declined, the railway declined too, and eventually failed financially. In 1909 it was purchased by the Great Western Railway, but its days were already numbered, and it closed in 1917, its track materials being removed in aid of the war effort.