Ironstone Museums and information:
- Cleveland Ironstone Museum: mine tours, people, places.
- Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron: people, trades, exhibits.
- Threlkeld Quarry and Mining Museum: Lakeland industrial heritage, home of Vintage Excavator Trust.
- Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum: narrow gauge history.
- Northamptonshire Ironstone Railway Trust: trains, rides and more.
- Iron Ore: Geology of iron, what it is, how it is formed.
- The ironstone trains: recollections of locomotive fireman Roy Vinter.
- Industrial Railway Society (IRS): Archive and information on industrial locomotives.
- IRS archives 3+4: Detailed archive including Exton Park and Colsterworth.
- IRS library guide: a downloadable .pdf index and wealth of technical listings.
- Ironstone in Leicestershire: Bob Trubshaw video updating Eric Tonks extensive research.
Other related websites (active as of 3rd July 2023):
- Rocks by Rail locos and wagons: a comprehensive listing.
- Midland Railway Study Centre: Collection of material and ephemera relating to the Midland Railway.
- Facebook videos: a collection of videos at Rocks by Rail.
- Vintage Carriage Trust: All about railway carriages and trucks.
- FEPOW: About our “Singapore” locomotive and the Far Eastern Prisoners of War memorial.
- Leicestershire Live: The dark past of Rutland steam engine “Singapore”.
- BBC history: “Sundew” dragline bucket.
- W1400 video: YouTube video of W1400 similar to our “Sundew”. The text suggests it is “Sundew” however it is actually BSC No2 at Corby most likely at Barn Close Quarry.
- 1 2 3 4: photos of “Sundew” including being dismantled.
- Tippler Wagons: Railway Museum loan wagons at Rocks by Rail.
- LMS Society: history of the LMS railway.
- Cottesmore quarry: local history of quarrying.
- Cottesmore: all about the village and history.
- Exton Park railway: pictures of remaining artifacts.
- Oakham canal history: remnants can be seen at Rocks by Rail.
- Oakham canal map: stylised map showing rail, road and canal.
- Oakham canal trail: downloadable .pdf walking guide and history.
- Avonside Engine Company: builders of our “Stamford” steam locomotive.
- Hawthorn Leslie: builders of our “Singapore” steam locomotive.
- Hudswell Clarke Company: builders of our “Rhos” steam locomotive.
- Peckett & Sons: builders of our “Uppingham” steam locomotive.
- Ransoms & Rapier: A Science Museum potted history of the company.
- Sentinel: builders of our “Betty”, “Graham” and “Jean” diesel locomotives.
- Sentinel Wagon Works: more history and pictures.
- Yorkshire Engine Company: builders of our “2521” steam and 1382, DE5 diesel locomotives.
- Tim’s Train Videos: stills and video taken at Rocks by Rail including video of our diggers in action.
Maps showing the history of quarry railways at Cottesmore.
The maps are approximately the same land area within the limits of the original scan sizing:
- 2023 satellite view showing landscape, can you spot any remaining artifacts?
- 2023 OS mapping
- 1967 Large expansion of tramways to Exton Park quarry.
- 1960
- 1953
- 1952 NE Rutland; SE Rutland
- 1951 LMS Railway extensions and more tramways in 1:25000 scale.
New quarry tramway northwards. Sheet43-81; Sheet43-91 - 1942 Cottesmore pit no longer – tramway extends to Burley quarry.
- 1922 Tramway extensions.
- 1907
- 1899
- 1891 Smaller scale showing MR junction.
- 1884 Midland Railway access – tramway to Cottesmore ironstone pit.
- Track diagram of Ashwell sidings dated 1963.
Now you may wonder what happens to old versions of our website – are they lost forever?
Well not necessarily. The internet has an archive of websites called “The Wayback Machine”.
The link below takes you to old Rocks by Rail webpages and you can also browse through all the archive – hours of interest – be patient, sometimes the webpage takes time to load:
- Here is a list of webpages, click on any to view a page.
a tip here, click on links which show meaningful text – a lot of links may just display what appears to be jibberish. The interesting links tend to be towards the end of the list. - Here is a list of all the URLs used, click on any to view the image.
- Here is our website back in 2012.
- Here is our stock list from 2017.