An Act for enabling the Company of Proprietors of the Hay Railway to amend, vary, and extend the Line of the said Railway, and for altering and enlarging the Powers of an Act passed in the Fifty-first Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, for making and maintaining the said Railway.
The railway was authorised by the Hay Railway Act 1811 (51 Geo. 3. c. cxxii) on 25 May 1811. Construction of its winding 24-mile-long route took nearly five years and the line was opened on 7 May 1816.[1] The tramway was built to a gauge of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm). The railway adopted the use of cast-iron L-shaped tramroad plates in its construction. The vertical portions of the two plates were positioned inside the wheels of the tramway wagons and the plates were spiked to stone blocks for stability. The size of the stones, and their spacing, was such that the horses could operate unimpeded.[2]
Operation of the railway
From 1 May 1820, the Hay Railway was joined at its Eardisley terminus, in an end on junction, by the Kington Tramway. Together, the two lines totalled 36 miles in length, comprising the longest continuous plateway to be completed in the United Kingdom.[3]
The Hay railway operated through rural areas on the borders of England and Wales and was built to transport goods and freight. Passengers were not carried on any official basis.
Awdry, Christopher (1990), Encyclopedia of British Railway Companies, Patrick Stephens Ltd, ISBN1-85260-508-1
Baughan, Peter E. (1980). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 11 North and Mid Wales (1st ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN0-7153-7850-3. OCLC6823219.