An industrial railway is a type of private railway used exclusively to serve a particular industry inside a mine or factory compound. Industrial railways were once very common, but with the rise of road transport, their numbers have greatly diminished.
As an example, an industrial railway would transport say clay from a quarry to an interchange point with a main line railway, where it would be transported to its final destination. The line would be owned and operated by the quarry company, and would exist soley to serve the quarry.
Most industrial railways are short, usually being only a few kilometres long, but there are notable exceptions—examples of which include the iron ore-carrying railways in Western Australia which are hundreds of kilometres in length and exist to transport iron ore from the inland to the coast.
As well as quarries, industrial railways can serve many different types of industry. In Cuba a large number of industrial railways exist to serve the sugarcane industry. In Colorado, the Coors Brewing Company uses its own industrial railway to shuttle rolling stock around the brewery both for the delivery of raw materials and shipping finished product. Industrial railways are also used to serve places such as ammunition dumps.
Many industrial railways were narrow gauge, although there were some standard gauge railways.
