page_title: Mineral railways of Dunfermline
section_title: Background, limestone and coal
hierarchical_section_title: Mineral railways of Dunfermline / Background, limestone and coal
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Dunfermline coalfield
context_page_description: Several mineral railways were constructed around Dunfermline in western Fife, Scotland, in the eighteenth century and later. Their purpose was to convey minerals to market from the outcropping coal deposits that had encouraged industrial activity in the area from an early date.
  Several waggonways were built: the Fordell Railway, the Elgin Railway, the Halbeath Railway and others, with the objective of connecting collieries and quarries with harbours on the Firth of Forth. The Elgin Railway carried passengers from 1833 and formed the core of the Charlestown Railway and Harbour company, and finally in 1856 the West of Fife Mineral Railway was founded to build new lines. The Charleston and West of Fife companies combined to form the West of Fife Railway and Harbour.
  All the lines have ceased to exist, except that a short section of the Charlestown line forms part of the Inverkeithing to Dunfermline line.
context_section_description: Coal deposits had been worked in the area close to the Fife coast for centuries. Coal had been important in the manufacture of lime, and of salt, both of which required huge quantities of coal. Transport of heavy minerals before the era when roads had been properly made was expensive, and most minerals were carried on the backs of pack horses. The expense of even a short transit hugely increased the cost of the product.
  Proximity to water enabled boat transportation, and therefore mineral deposits close to the Firth were favoured, and were exploited first. Coal outcrops were worked since the fourteenth century, in shallow pits but as these were worked out, the workings had to move further away from water and transport became more difficult.
  In the eighteenth century much of the limestone from the area around Dunfermline was exported through Brucehaven, near Limekilns, but as the agricultural revolution gathered pace the demand for lime to improve land also accelerated.
  Before the era of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the 1830s, many collieries used wooden waggonways to move the mineral. By the eighteenth century these had achieved a degree of sophistication with proper guidance systems, and flanged wheels on the waggons had become widespread, although not universal. These waggonways were developed principally on Tyneside, and in Shropshire, and the technology was disseminated at first from those places.
  Three large waggonway networks were established by landowners to exploit coal and limestone deposits in their estates during this period; their systems were each referred to as railways, and they all continued into the modern railway era.
caption: The Dunfermline coalfield in 1847
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