page_title: Brampton Railway
section_title: Leased to Thompson
hierarchical_section_title: Brampton Railway / Leased to Thompson
context_page_description: The Brampton railway was a mineral railway built in 1798 to bring coal from workings on Tindale Fell to staiths at Brampton. It was a development of short sections of earlier wooden railways.
  When the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway was opened in 1836 the Brampton Railway was diverted to make a junction with that line. The section from the junction to Brampton was later transferred to the North Eastern Railway, carrying passengers and goods, but it closed in 1923.
  The remainder became dedicated to serving collieries and other mineral workings, and was successively extended in the remote hills south of Brampton. It flourished when the collieries did well, but after nationalisation of the pits in 1947 steep decline set in and the line closed in 1953.
  The line has been known by a number of names during its existence, including the Tindale Fell Railway, the Midgeholme Railway, the Hartleyburn & Brampton Railway, and simply the Brampton Railway.
context_section_description: Early in 1837 James Thompson leased the collieries, limeworks and waggonway from the Earl of Carlisle, and the latter took no further managerial interest in them; Thompson formed the firm of Thompson and Sons of Kirkhouse. In April 1837 Thompson acquired the Rocket, the famous locomotive of the Rainhill Trials that had been designed by Robert Stephenson. He paid the Liverpool and Manchester Railway £300 for it. Rocket was acquired to operate mineral trains, but was too light for the purpose and was laid aside in 1840.
  Thompson's firm built locomotives from 1839 at Kirkhouse; the first was Belted Will; later Mosstrooper was built there, but this machine had inside cylinders which fouled the rollers on the inclined plane, which was located above Forest Head. Locomotives were required to traverse the incline to reach the upper level, and this unforeseen limitation was serious; a special carriage had to be built to convey the locomotive over the incline. 
  Thompson improved and extended the existing mine workings, driving drifts and a drainage tunnel over several years, considerably expanding and improving the collieries. However he died in 1851. His widow Maria Thompson took over the firm.
caption: Stephenson's Rocket
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