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 The Snailbeach District
Railways, originally envisaged as a public railway, had evolved, because of
lack of capital, as a 2’3 ¾’’ narrow gauge mineral railway. It was a railway
tied to the ups and downs of the Mining and extractive industries For the
first 30 years it was run largely as a subsidiary to the Snailbeach Lead
Mining Company, its principal customer. After extensive mine closures great
efforts were made to revive it in the early 1900s by its managing dynasty,
the Dennis family, in wake of revivals in traffic processing mine waste and
road stone, from a quarry promoted by the Dennis’s (the Granhams Moor Quarry
Co at Eastridge). Closure was considered again as early as 1913 with the
final failure of the Mining company (although pumping continued until 1919)
but the railway was kept going though the First World War by healthy wartime
quarry and barite traffic. It was again brought to its knees by the failure
and final closure of Eastridge Quarry in around 1920 and traffic dropped
below 3,000 tons in 1922.
In early 1923 Stephens bought the railway
company, virtually as his personal property, and set about re-equipping it.
He was successful in this and with steady feldspar traffic from the old mine
tailings, and particularly with the opening of a new road stone quarry at
Callow Hill (albeit too near to the terminus at Pontesbury to gain
satisfactory mileage), the railway enjoyed a modest prosperity. Shropshire
County Council took over the quarry in October 1930 and, with assured traffic
flows, more wagons were bought in 1935 and plans laid in 1937 to reduce
engine mileage by moving the locomotive shed to Pontesbury from its remote
site at the end of the line amongst the old mine workings.
With World War 2, as the county council was
forced to cut back on road repairs, this modest prosperity disappeared. The
railway survived with traffic at about half pre-war levels but the longer
haul feldspar traffic had gone. However as the war in Europe was reaching its
climax, another enemy emerged at home.
 The engine shed, coal yard and carpenters shop
and their associated water supply stood on land leased by the mining company
(by the thirties Halvans Ltd) from the landlord the Earl of Bath, and
successive subleases had been signed. However Halvans surrendered the head
lease at the end of March 1944 to Mr Joe Roberts of Snailbeach Mines,
Minsterley (trading as the Snailbeach Barite Company), who mined barite from
the shallow mine workings. Roberts proved a vindictive landlord. By June he
was claiming an increased rent (in the middle of a fixed lease) and that land
on which rails were laid on the main line was now on his land. By March1945
Roberts had cut off the water supply at Snailbeach and removed two lengths of
rail with sleepers on the main line by the Snailbeach Wharf Bridge. Luckily
one of the engines was customarily stabled below this point but the other two
engines were stranded at the engine shed at Snailbeach. An injunction was
applied for against Roberts, and given that he had removed rails from a
statutory railway in wartime this was speedily delivered!
Final settlement was however more prolonged and
the court delivered its final judgement on 16 August 1945. The settlement was
that Roberts agreed that the Company were the owners of the main line of the
Railway from Pontesbury to Snailbeach and the branch leading to the engine
shed at Snailbeach. He also agreed to give the company a 14-year lease (with
a 7 year termination option for the company) of the engine shed, and its
immediate service siding and water supply for £10 per annum. Roberts agreed
to pay £50 or the Snailbeach's costs provided the company’s counter claim for
loss of water supply and costs of track restoration was dropped. Tenancies of
the coal yard and carpenters shop, no longer necessary for the railway, were
surrendered to Roberts.
 This strange and destructive
little spat was taking place while the railway was in deep financial trouble
and within weeks closure was considered and moves initiated to lease the
railway to its sole remaining user, Shropshire County Council. By mid 1946
the steam engines, and hence the engine shed and the top part of the line,
fell into disuse, with a hired agricultural tractor hauling the Callow Hill
traffic. The bottom end of the line was leased to the Council from 14 April
1947 and the top end went to sleep until, with Mr Roberts’ lease window
looming, the engines were scrapped. The loco shed building and its approach
lines reverted to Mr Roberts, who carried on working the tips until the
1970s. And by one of those odd quirks of history they remain in existence to
this day as part of a mining museum.
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