Introduction

This was a 2 mile long 2ft 4in tramway which ran between the Aberfoyle Slate Quarries and Aberfoyle station to the south (and about 1,000 ft below) with a long steep incline on the southern slope of the prominent Craigmore [Hill] (1,200 ft). For much of the length of the tramway it was horse operated and single track. Slate was trans-shipped at the station before dispatch by standard gauge railway in the Glasgow and Stirling directions. The quarries produced different types of slate including a much in demand beautiful green sheened roofing slate. Production increased greatly with the opening of the tramway, to about 2.5 million slates per annum. The tramway served several locations within the Aberfoyle Slate Quarries. From the quarries the single track tramway followed a contour for a mile round the east side of Craigmore, at first heading south east, turning south and then south west to reach the north end of the incline. This double track self-acting incline ran south downhill. It was over 2,100 ft long, at a gradient of about one in three, and dropped over 600 ft. There was a continuous steel wire rope on which 'trains' of six wagons carrying 500 slates of 17cwt descended. Descent could be stopped via a screw brake. Empty wagons (with the occasional 'passenger') climbed the incline. From the bottom of the incline the tramway, single track again, turned east behind the school and ran for half a mile, passing under the main road en route, to a loading bank at Aberfoyle station. The engineers were Formans and McCall (also engineers of the Strathendrick and Aberfoyle Railway and associated with the quarries) and the tramway replaced a dangerous mountain road. The former tramway can be walked for much of its length, although the portion close to the quarries is difficult to trace and the part within in now abandoned quarries is inaccessible for safety reasons (the huge piles of waste are unstable). Another shorter tramway was to the east, running to the Lime Craig Quarry and there was a dolomite quarry to the west of the incline.