The Forest of Dean Railway was a railway company operating in Gloucestershire, England. It was formed in 1826 when the moribund Bullo Pill Railway and a connected private railway failed, and they were purchased by the new company. At this stage it was a horse-drawn plateway, charging a toll for private hauliers to use it with horse traction. The traffic was chiefly minerals from the Forest of Dean, in the Whimsey and Churchway areas, near modern-day Cinderford, for onward conveyance from Bullo Pill at first, and later by the Great Western Railway.
When the South Wales Railway was proposed in 1844, the FODR was awarded £15,000 to modernise its line and make a broad gauge edge railway in connection; the FODR was slow to implement this and in 1849 the South Wales Railway purchased the FODR outright, making it a branch of its own network. The line was steeply graded and difficult to work, and it was often congested due to heavy traffic.
In 1907 passenger traffic was instituted using railmotors, a low-cost means of carrying light passenger traffic, and for some time this was very successful. Trains ran from Whimsey, later extended northward to Drybridge on a contiguous line built by the GWR. Newnham was the main line junction station, although some branch trains ran through to Gloucester. As motor bus services became dominant, the passenger services became unprofitable and they were withdrawn in 1958. The network was closed completely in 1967 as mineral traffic ceased.
First proposals for a tramroad
The Forest of Dean Coalfield had long been a source of mineral working, for iron ore and coal. Free Miners had statutory rights in the Forest, which protected them from external competition. However this limited the extent to which large scale operations could be undertaken. A number of short tramways were built in the Forest, but the road network was extremely difficult and transportation of mineral products to market was expensive and uncompetitive. Timber in the Forest was used for the construction of ships for the Royal Navy, and Crown Commissioners protected the forestry in a way that also impeded industrialisation of the mining.
The first railways—in fact plateways—in the Forest of Dean were designed to connect the rivers Severn and Wye, and it was not until 1806 that a serious proposal came forward to take minerals down the eastern area, southward along the Cinderford valley. That idea failed to progress, but the promoters together took land leases and announced that they would build a railway despite the setback. Work began on the line northward from Bullo Pill; no Parliamentary authority was needed as the land had been acquired.
The Bullo Pill Railway Company
Towards the end of 1808 a further bill was prepared to authorise a public railway or tramroad from the summit of the hill above Churchway Engine (north-west of present-day Cinderford) to Cinderford Bridge. This became the Bullo Pill Railway, which was incorporated on 10 June 1809. There were several short branches serving mineral workings.
On 20 September 1809 a press report announced "the tunnel is completed through Hay-Hill to the Forest of Dean, which is connected with the River Severn, and a channel thus established, by which the valuable productions of the Forest may be brought to market with a feasibility hitherto unknown." The Haie tunnel, at 1,100 yards in length, was one of the earliest to be driven for a railway.
The Bullo Pill Railway was probably completed soon afterwards. The track was of the L-plate form in which plain wagons wheels could run, guided by the upstand of the L. There are uncertainties about the gauge, but four feet measured between the outer faces of the vertical flanges, is generally assumed.
The Whimsey branch was built about 1823, and Whimsey later became an important focal point for private tramroads running northwards.
The Forest of Dean Railway takes control
By 1826 the Bullo Pill Railway was almost at a standstill and Edward Protheroe, a prominent coal-owner in the Parkend area and chairman of the S&WR, purchased the whole concern, including the Great Bilson colliery, selling the railway to a new company he formed, the Forest of Dean Railway Company, of which he was the chairman. An Act was obtained on 5 May 1826 authorising the new company to purchase and maintain both the Bullo Pill Railway and the private line, and to make the latter public. The eighteen subscribers included Edward and three other Protheroes, and the capital was £125,000 in £50 shares. The maximum tolls were maintained over the BPR section, and tolls were laid down for the private section.