Path on Route of Old Coal Railway Line
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Path on Route of Old Coal Railway Line by Ian Dodds as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
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Path on Route of Old Coal Railway Line
Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 15 Jun 2021
Looking at the map before setting off it was obvious that some paths round here would follow the routes of old railway lines, but until I checked old maps online on my return I assumed that this wasn't one of them. This was because of the sharpness of the bend - not obvious here - from the track it led from. It is often easy to forget that due to the short distances of a lot of these old mineral railways lines that speed wasn't a high priority. The line took coal from Southfield Colliery to Shotts Iron Works, which judging by old maps was a very big operation indeed. In fact the coal mine was owned by the iron company, which explains why the path takes the course it does.
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Image Location
Latitude
55.817342
Longitude
-3.770487