Surrey Iron Railway

The Surrey Iron Railway (SIR) was the first Transport Project to come under the Parliamentary Bill Procedure. The last was the Croydon Tramlink Bill in July 1994.

The Surrey Iron Railway was the first public railway and provided an important transport link for the industries of the River Wandle. It ran from the Thames at Wandsworth to Croydon where it then joined with the Croydon, Merstham and Godstone Railway.

A horse drawn railway, the Surrey Iron Railway, was suggested as an alternative to a canal. To be effective the canal would have had to draw water from the River Wandle, which supplied the power for the mills. The mill owners, not unsurprisingly, were against the proposal and so the S.I.R. was built.

The SIR was designed by William Jessop and covered a distance of 8 miles.
To learn more about this unique piece of history, please visit the museum. We are also pleased to able to make available for view on this web site Peter McGow’s excellent notes ((c) Peter Mcgow, November 2001, and The Wandle Industrial Museum) on the Surrey Iron Railway. Please follow this link:
McGow’s Notes