I'm looking to build a 1/2 mile tramway to move 20 tonne per day of material to a processing plant on slow 2 ft gauge tramway /railway. I'm open to using small hopper trucks to spread wheel or axle loads but want to have 4 to 5 tonnes per mini train, aka the small bucket hoppers used on Feldbahn or mine railways. This is for deployment in a developing Pacific nation so labour is not my constraint; indeed I'm happy to hire more workers to save the cost of doing this with imported diesel and heavy truck/s.

I've also only had groovy rail experience at 7 1/4" so using rail is new to me.

Geotechnically, the soil is volcanic grainy soil well drained minimal clay (amazing for a light railway) so sleepers (ties) are 4" wide, 2 1/2' thick and probably 4' long, and nominally placed 1 ft apart. If I use rail I can carry more weight than using groovy rail (hot rolled flat bar 3/4" by 2" pressed into a slot in the tie/sleeper) - and I am open to using 4040, 3040 even 2540 (American Civil Eng Soc - I think).

I'm assuming a light electric engine with lead acid batteries will give me adequate grunt to run the load up the line with rise of around 15m over 400m and balance of 300m is level. Return train will deliver 10 to 15% waste to original site, so limited regeneration potential exists. We'll generate our own electric power so the recharge is an insignificant cost factor. At worst we may put up an overhead catenary for the climb out of the valley to level the line.