The Hay Railway was an early Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 narrow gauge

Narrow gauge

A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...

 horse tramway
that connected Eardisley

Eardisley

Eardisley is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire about south of the centre of Kington. Eardisley is in the Wye valley in the northwest of the county, close to the border with Wales....

 (10 miles northeast of) Hay-on-Wye

Hay-on-Wye

Hay-on-Wye , often described as "the town of books", is a small market town and community in Powys, Wales.-Location:The town lies on the east bank of the River Wye and is within the Brecon Beacons National Park, just north of the Black Mountains...

 with Watton Wharf on the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal.

Parliamentary authorisation, construction and opening

The railway received parliamentary authorisation 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. The tramway was built to a gauge of . 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.

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

Kington Tramway

The Kington Tramway was an early narrow gauge horse tramway that linked limestone quarries at Burlinjob in Radnorshire to Eardisley in Herefordshire.-Parliamentary authorisation, construction and opening:...

. Together, the two lines totalled 36 miles in length, comprising the longest continuous plateway

Plateway

A plateway is an early kind of railway or tramway or wagonway, with a cast iron rail. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later....

 to be completed in the United Kingdom.

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.

The Hay Railway was absorbed into the Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway

Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway

The Hereford, Hay and Brecon Railway was an early railway linking Hereford in England with Brecon in Wales.-Incorporation and early history:...

 in 1860 and the line was converted to standard gauge

Standard gauge

The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

for operation by steam locomotives.