Stone by Rail: A History of the Rail-connected Quarries of Aggregate Industries

This review describes the rail-connected quarries of the UK-based Aggregates Industries group, trading as Bardon Aggregates, a company that started from small beginnings in Leicestershire to become the country’s largest rail-operated stone extractive company, with four ‘super-sized’ quarries, each operating privately owned mineral railways. The author explains how these and several other acquired quarries, which formerly used railway transport, came to make up the massive organisation that is today’s Aggregate Industries Ltd. The histories of the various quarries are described, including the development of their internal railways and connections with the main-line network, their railway operations, and their locomotives and rolling stock, from steam to diesel, and from the colourful private owner wagon era to the huge block trains of today. The text is supported by maps and plans, as well as many archive and present-day photographs, and paintings specially executed by the author. The quarry operations concerned are: Bardon Hill Croft Pitts Cleave, Hay Tor and Forder Stoneycombe Westleigh Meldon Dulcote, Torr and Mendip Rail Ltd