An underground tramway was in use in 1783 at Pentewan near St Austell in a tin working, but the earliest above-ground railroad in Cornwall was the horse-drawn mineral Poldice Tramway from the St day area to Portreath. This was built to link the Gwennap copper mines to a harbour at Portreath on the north coast. This enabled coal, for steam engines used at the mines, to be imported and copper ore to be exported to Wales for smelting.
Poldice Tramway
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