TeamManley

The Caradon Footpath   Gonamena  Incline

 Caradon Mine View    The footpath route

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The Looe and Cardon Railway trackbed near the top of the Gonamena incline  May 2000    The railway began its decent down to the Seaton Valley at this point through the walled cutting.    On the horizon the engine houses of South Caradon Mine can be seen silhouetted. A piece of farm machinery has been sited over the cutting, utilising the drop in height as a loading bay.   The Gonamena Incline plane was used to haul wagons from the Seaton Valley to the upper section of the railway near Minions.

The Gonamena incline looking up the slope  Summer 2001  Ropes hauled the wagons up the incline and is assumed that the motive power was provided by gravity with the heavy ore laden wagons going down to Moorswater pulling the lighter ones up.   The incline was a bottleneck in the system and also prevented the use of steam power on the upper sections.   Attempts where made to bypass the incline to the west with a branch that served Craddock Moor mine but the line was not completed.   The incline was finally bypassed in 1877, by extending the Tokenbury branch around the eastern side of Caradon Hill.

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