Justifying a Narrow Gauge Line

I am looking at (re) starting my S&D inspired 'OO' layout

There were a number of industrial narrow gauge systems that fed into the line.

Now in a lot of areas, for example peat bogs railways were used because they provided a solution to the problem of moving materials, and of course in the immediate post WW1 period 2ft gauge equipment was readily available.

But........ If I am carrying the material for any distance - say a mile what sort of weekly tonnage would be needed to justify a line? I am particularly thinking of the Fullers Earth works at Tucking Mill which had a peak output of about 200 tone per week

 

What's the proposed material the line is shifting?

I always fancied modelling the Oakhill Brewery and the S&D interchange at Binegar. At it's peak Oakhill was producing 2,500 barrels a week

 

Fullers Earth

 

It's surprising how many narrow gauge lines served nearby standard gauge - the NYMR, for example, had three - at Grosmont (ironstone tramway) Goathland (whinstone tramway) and New Bridge (sand quarry) so perhaps they were a lot more common than we appreciate.

 

The British NG scene isnt a 'public' line its a purely 'industrial' one, more often than not worked by IC engined locos from the start not steam

 

Just on the grounds of defining terms - do you mean "rails" or "fully fledged railway with its own motive power"?

As an example, Sheffield Park had a small narrow gauge line that was used to transport churns between a dairy and the platform where they could be loaded onto mainline trains; rolling stock was probably small trolleys and motive power the good old Mark 1 human, but rails clearly made the labour easier. I suspect such things were far from uncommon in situations where a goods yard was shared with something like a dairy, timber yard, etc.

A couple of examples:

Sheffield Park
https://maps.nls.uk/view/103669459 (south edge of map) and https://maps.nls.uk/view/103669501 (north edge of map)

Crawley
https://maps.nls.uk/view/103667218

Tom

 

Looking at the 1907 25" Maps there may have been more than that, all over the shop! But I suspect they mightn't have lasted very long.