Hercules Haulage

The Hercules Haulage, also known as the Mount [Read (Tasmania)|Mount Read Haulage], the Hercules Tram and the Williamsford Haulage Line, was a self-acting narrow gauge tramway on the side of Mount Read in Western Tasmania, that connected the Hercules Mine with Williamsford and then to the North East [Dundas Tramway].

The Mine

The Haulage was created to move ores from the Hercules Mine on Mount Read. The mine was operational between the 1890s and the 1980s, and closed in 2000; rehabilitation works commenced in 2005.

The Haulage

The haulage was "self acting", one mile long and 1,642 feet high with a maximum gradient of 1 in 5. It was claimed to be the largest and steepest self-acting tramway of its kind.

Later haulage

On the closure of the NE Dundas Tramway, the Aerial Ropeway from Hercules was built which took ore in a northerly direction to Rosebery, some literature confuses the two separate systems.