Written by Ian Pope and Paul Karau this is the first in a series of books which document the history and lines of the Severn & Wye Railway in the Forest of Dean.
From the 1840s housecoal collieries were developing along the ridge to the west of Cinderford and by the 1860s were coming into full production. The Severn & Wye was losing a large quantities of this coal traffic to the Great Western's Forest of Dean Branch despite Bullo Dock being much smaller than Lydney Docks.
The Severn & Wye was not well placed to serve such collieries as Lightmoor, Foxes Bridge and Crump Meadow, so sought powers for the construction of a line of railway to serve the centre of the Forest, penetrating into an area other concerns may have thought was theirs. Despite opposition from the Forest of Dean Central and Great Western Railways authorisation for the six mile Mineral Loop was gained in the 1869 Parliamentary session. Construction was complete by mid-1872 and it is the story of the Mineral Loop and the collieries it served that forms the subject of this fourth book in the series covering the Severn & Wye Railway.
Softback 174 pages