YouTube legend Tom Scott provides an awesome breakdown of the UK’s last aerial ropeway in the video below. The ropeway is used to move shale to a brickmaking facility a mile and a half away.
Aerial ropeways used to be prevalent across the UK for mining operations along with other uses. Tom Scott explains why this one is still in operation, and why it will be shut down in 2036.
It looks like a ski lift, doesn’t it?
Tom Scott: “In Claughton, Lancashire, the Forterra brickworks produces 50 million bricks a year, from shale that’s quarried a mile and a half away. To get that shale to the brickworks: the last aerial ropeway in the country. These used to be common: but now, the last one will be gone by 2036.”
