page_title: Treffry Tramways
section_title: Changing times
hierarchical_section_title: Treffry Tramways / History / Changing times
caption_attribution_description: English: The old tram track connecting to the harbour at Newquay, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. For more information see the Wikipedia article Treffry Tramways.
context_page_description: The Treffry Tramways were a group of mineral tramways in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, constructed by Joseph Treffry, a local land owner and entrepreneur. They were constructed to give transport facilities to several mines and pits producing non-ferrous metal, granite and china clay in the area between the Luxulyan Valley and Newquay, and were horse-operated, with the use of water and steam power on inclines, and at first operated in conjunction with the Par Canal and the harbour at Par, also constructed by Treffry. One of the routes crossed the Luxulyan Valley on a large viaduct, the largest in Cornwall when it was built.
  The tramways were opened in stages from 1835 to 1870. They provided a dramatic improvement in mineral transport, but they were technically obsolescent, and they were taken over in 1874 by the Cornwall Minerals Railway, a cash-rich company which invested heavily in improving railway transport in the area, making the lines suitable for locomotive operation and extending them.
context_section_description: The Fowey Consols Mine proved to have a limited life, and by 1865 it was geologically exhausted, and together with the connecting tramways it closed. In fact copper extraction in the Luxulyan Valley area declined irrevocably around that time, and although some efforts were made to mine tin ore, this never proved to be a commercial success. However granite quarrying enjoyed an upsurge, and new quarries opened on a small scale at Rock Mill Quarry and Orchard Quarry, above Pontsmill on the south-west side of the river. In 1870 a branch of the tramway was extended from near Pontsmill to serve the two quarries. The line was on the north-east side of the river, and it had two branches for the quarries; each of them crossed the river, and the Orchard Quarry line had an incline to reach the site. The tramway on the incline may have been narrow gauge and was probably gravity operated.
  Joseph Treffry's original decision in 1844 to use horse operation had made his tramways technically obsolescent, and by the 1870s they were significantly inefficient. It was clear that modernisation was required, but the Treffry Estate did not have the financial resources to carry out the work.
  In 1872 William Richardson Roebuck concluded negotiations with the estate trustees and on 21 February 1872 he leased the tramways. He formed a limited company, the Cornwall Minerals Railway Limited and his company obtained parliamentary authority on 21 July 1873 to acquire the lines, form a new railway to connect them, and to make an extension to Fowey, and to improve the original tramway sections so as to make them suitable for operation by steam locomotive.
caption: Part of the former tramway in Newquay, between the railway station and the present day junction of Bank Street and East Street, was preserved after the rails had been lifted and became a footpath and cycle way.
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