Peter Masson wrote:
"Matthew Church" wrote in message
om...

Starting on the east side of Youngs Brewery on the Thames (east of
The
Crane pub), The Surrey Iron Railroad followed (roughly) Garratt
Lane,
passed Colliers Wood at perpendicular to the current underground
track
and slightly to the west of the LU station, then meandered down to
Carshalton terminating near the ponds.

Later it was extended to link with the Croydon Canal:

And then - as you say - follows roughly the existing line past
Stoats
Nest Station (alight here for the Derby in Epsom when it was first
built).

The bridge by the Happy Eater is intact and is the original AFAIK,
there is another bridge very close which has been partially
demolished
to allow access to a field. No other remnant of the line exists but
you can "walk it" - start at The Goat in Mitcham and follow Tramway
Passage until you reach the London to Wimbledon tram line, then the
tram follows the old railroad for some distance.

The Surrey Iron Railway ran from Wandsworth to Croydon, with branches
to
Hackbridge and the Croydon Canal Basin. After the London & Croydon
and
London & Brighton Railways opened (by 1841), the Surrey Iron Railway
was
effectively defunct, and was closed, and the company dissolved, in
August
1846. Part of the trackbed was subsequently used for the Wimbledon &
Croydon
Railway (and recently converted for Tramlink).

The nominally separate Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway extended
the
Croydon Iron Railway to the Greystone Lime Works.

It never got to Godstone although IIRC some of the rails ended up in
the underground stone quarry there

Its trackbed was not used
by the London & Brighton, except incidentally, but the Brighton's
route did
intersect it and obliterate its route, and the London & Brighton
purchased
the earlier company in 1838.

The mainline spur to the limeworks is still there complete with track,
between the two tunnel approaches S of the Merstham tunnels; but the
bridge which took it over the Quarry line just before the tunnel has
gone.