Dry helped arrange a loan from the Treasury to put the miners back to work by cutting a tunnel directly to Tidmouth.

With personal and financial ties to the mining company's operations A.W. The disruption of the tramway route led to unemployment. All went well until autumn 1908, when the coastal section of the line was destroyed by a severe storm. At Tidmouth he built four vertical boiler engines which were soon nicknamed the Coffee Pots. Topham Hatt, was tasked to build light locomotives in their place. Horses were not deemed appropriate for the longer haulage of the (mostly lead) minerals and A.W.Dry's young engineer Mr. Under recommendation from A.W.Dry, the mining company abandoned the harbour in favour of extending the line around the coastline to Tidmouth.

The harbour however proved a disappointment as it needed constant dredging and by 1905, the cost had become prohibitive. The line opened in 1885 as the Elsbridge and Knapford Railway. The line itself began from the wharf just outside of Elsbridge and curved east to the mines at Toryreck and from there, keeping to the firmest ground, swung round on top of the embankments in a wide curve to bypass the remaining fenland to reach the harbour at Knapford. From here it was drained off everyday at low tide. With the addition of an embankment along the south eastern side of the River Els the water was allowed to flow into a pool along its opposite side that was left undeveloped. A.W.Dry & Co built embankments across the flats north and south of the river and installed tide gates. Dry and Company, a firm who had the necessary experience from their engineering work on overcoming drainage problems in East Anglia. To overcome the issue in 1883, they called in A.W. Its origins begun when the Ulfstead Mining Company became interested in minerals at the high ground to the south-east of Toryreck but due to surrounding fenlands could not extract or transport them by land and the section of the River Els from Elsbridge to Knapford was hazardous. The first railway in the western area of Sodor was originally horse-operated. Its trackbed now forms Thomas' Branch Line from Knapford Harbour up to Elsbridge and the segment of the Main Line between Tidmouth and Knapford. The Tidmouth, Knapford and Elsbridge Light Railway ( TK&E) was one of the original three standard gauge railways on the Island of Sodor.

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