There was a proposal in the mid 1970s to build a narrow gauge railway in the new Daisy Nook country park!
The idea was discussed and planned by the Medlock & Tame Valley Conservation Committee and got as far as acquiring two diesel locomotives and rolling stock from Oldham Corporation.
Nothing came of the plan due to the difficulties and expense of building and operating a passenger railway.
It is the Hollinwood branch of the Ashton Canal at Daisy Nook (closed in 1897) rather than a railway. There was tramway, however, to link up the canal to one of the collieries The Oldham to Ashton railway ran to the east of the main road - which you can mostly cycle / walk on although the viaduct at Park Bridge is missing.
The Hollinwood Branch Canal closed in 1935 as a result of severe mining subsidence in the area. The Cinderland Bridge became too low to accomodate unloaded boats and it was impossible to maintain sufficient depth of water in the canal.
At closure, the 1812 beam pumping engine at the locks was stopped but remained reasonably intact into 1950s, then scrapped. Apart from some local coal traffic to mills in the Hollinwood area, a local canal carrying firm had a sand quarry on the banks of the Medlock, supplying a builders' merchants in Droylsden.
The course of the tramway from Woodbank Colliery to the canal can still be traced as a line of bushes and trees across fields to the north of the Fairbottom branch canal.
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