Fascinating; I'd never heard of these. As reported in The History Blog:
Archaeologists excavating the site of the Neptune Shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne, northeastern England, before development have discovered a 25-meter (82 feet) stretch of an 18th century wooden railway. These rails weren’t transporting trains — they wouldn’t be invented until the next century — but rather wooden wagons, aka chaldrons, pulled by horses. This is a section of the Willington Waggonway built in the 1760s to transport coal from several local collieries to the river Tyne...More information at The History Blog, especially re the development of standard gauge. You learn something every day.
...the networks of waggonways were essential to the development of the industry. They enabled collieries to transport far more coal than wagons on traditional roads. One horse could deliver between 10 to 13 long tons of coal per trip along the waggonways, four times more than that same horse could deliver off track. They were built like Roman aqueducts, at a slight downhill incline from colliery to dock, whenever possible so gravity could help drive the wagons...
It’s a discovery of major historical significance, not just because of its importance to the history of the region, but because the rail gauge is standard gauge, still the most widely used rail width in the world...
Photo cropped from the original at The Journal.
Most likely a happen-chance accident. From Wikipedia: "There was no standard gauge for horse railways, but there were rough groupings: in the north of England none were less than 4 ft (1,219 mm).[10] Wylam colliery's system, built before 1763, was 5 ft (1,524 mm); as was John Blenkinsop's Middleton Railway, the old 4 ft (1,219 mm) plateway was relaid to 5 ft (1,524 mm) so that Blenkinsop's engine could be used.[10] Others were 4 ft 4 in (1,321 mm) Beamish or 4 ft 7 1⁄2 in (Bigges Main and Kenton and Coxlodge).[10]"
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