The 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge East Cornwall Mineral Railway was opened to Kelly Quay at Calstock on 8 May 1872. Wagons with goods from the mines around Gunnislake and Callington were brought down the hillside on a 0.4 miles (0.6 km) cable-worked incline with a gradient of 1 in 6 (17%).[2]
A steam-powered lift was attached to the downstream side of the viaduct which could raise and lower wagons to the quays 113 feet (34 m) below, making it one of the highest such lifts in the country. It was connected to the station goods yard by a second parallel steel stub viaduct. A short section of the narrow gauge line was retained to serve a lime kiln, but the wagon lift and all the sidings were taken out of use in September 1934.
Fruit and flowers were an important part of the traffic carried on the railway and were still carried by train from Calstock until the mid-1970s.[4]
Platform layout
The single platform – on the right of trains arriving from Plymouth – is situated on a sharp curve which makes it difficult to see trains approaching from Gunnislake.
Services
A train to Gunnislake
Calstock is served by trains on the Tamar Valley Line from Gunnislake to Plymouth. Connections with main line services can be made at Plymouth.
The viaduct is 120 feet (37 m) high with twelve 60 feet (18 m) wide arches, and a further small arch in the Calstock abutment. Three of the piers stand in the River Tamar, which is tidal at this point and has a minimum clearance at high tide of 110 feet (34 m).
It was built between 1904 and 1907 by John Lang of Liskeard using 11,148 concrete blocks. These were cast in a temporary yard on the Devon bank opposite the village. The engineers were Richard Church and W. R. Galbraith.
The construction of the viaduct provided the background to the 1939 novel The Viaduct by Victor Canning, set in the fictional village of Caradon which was closely modelled on Calstock.[7]
