The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway was a narrow gauge railway in Kintyre, Scotland, between Campbeltown and the coalmining village of Machrihanish. Only three other passenger-carrying lines in the UK operated on the same gauge, all of them in Wales - the Corris Railway, the short-lived Plynlimon and Hafan Tramway and the Talyllyn Railway. History Coal has been mined on the Kintyre peninsula since 1498 or before. Although not of the highest quality, the coal found there was abundant and relatively cheap to extract. In the middle of the eighteenth century the collieries of the area were kept busy supplying the many whisky distilleries in the Campbeltown area. Canal In 1773, James Watt surveyed a canal to connect the coal mines to Campbeltown to reduce the costs of transportation. The Campbeltown and Machrihanish Canal was opened in 1791. This early transportation link fell into disuse and had been virtually abandoned by 1856. In 1875, the Argyll Coal and Canal Co. acquired the main colliery and found the canal in a state of disrepair. They decided a better transportation system was required and began to investigate the building of a railway to Campbeltown. Colliery railway As rail transport developed in the 19th century, the colliery owners sought to build a tramway to replace the canal. In 1876 a lightly constructed industrial railway was built connecting Kilkivan Pit to Campbeltown, a distance of . For a short length the line ran on the formation of the canal before reaching Campbeltown, where it ended on a pier. The colliery railway only ever carried coal traffic and used two locomotives, Princess and Chevalier to haul the trains of mine tubs. Light railway The colliery railway's traffic was largely seasonal as most of the colliery output was consumed locally. Around the turn of the century the mine owners began to search for additional traffic for the summer season. At the same time, new steam ships began bringing tourists to the remote Kintyre peninsula. This led to the formation of the Association of Argyll Railway Co. Ltd. which applied for an order under the Light Railways Act to build a railway connecting Campbeltown with Machrihanish, on the west coast of the peninsula. Construction of the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway began in November 1905. The majority of the route of the new railway followed the colliery tramway, but with several of the steeper gradients and sharper