When the Wotton Tramway was constructed in 1870, it was intended to be operated with horses as motive power and the track was lightly laid using bridge pattern rails, specially rolled in South Wales at the Briton Ferry Mills of Messrs Townsend, Wood and Company. The rails weighed 30lbs a yard and each rail was 21 ft long. Recently the Post Office laid a new cable along the line of the Tramway through out site, in connection with the Telephone Exchange they have built in the field behind the up yard - and, when they dug the trench for the cable run, they unearthed one of the old rails - a marvellous discovery (pictured above). It has been presented to us for our Museum and will join the length of 50 lbs a yard flat bottomed steel rail of 1894 vintage which we recovered some years ago at Brill Brickworks.

Notes:
The text in this Quainton Railway Society publication was written in 1980 and so does not reflect events in the 34+ years since publication. The text and photographs are repeated verbatim from the original publication, with only a few minor grammar changes but some clarifying notes are added if deemed necessary. The photos from the original publication are provided as scans in this internet version of this long out of print publication.

Reference:
An Archaeological Find by the Post Office - Quainton News No. 40 - Spring 1980