The railway enabled the transportation of copper and tin ore from the mines, using coastal shipping or onward transport. Coal (for fuelling pumps which kept the mines dry) and machinery and timber were brought in, and general merchandise was conveyed.E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway, volume II, published by the Great Western Railway Company, London, 1931Alan Bennett, The Great Western Railway in West Cornwall, Runpast Publishing, Cheltenham, 1988, S C Jenkins and R C Langley, The West Cornwall Railway, Oakwood Press, 2002, The Story of Cornwall's Railways, undated, published by D Bradford Barton, Truro
