Caernarfon railway station

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Link to Welsh translationCaernarfon Welsh Highland Railway station

caernarfon_station_1997This station is the starting point of the narrow-gauge Welsh Highland Railway to Porthmadog. The track, which measures 60cm between the rails, opened in stages from 1997, mostly following the route of the original WHR which closed in 1937. The project was managed by the Ffestiniog Railway.

The WHR’s tracks join the FR’s at Porthmadog, forming the longest heritage railway line of any gauge in the UK. The photo shows press and TV cameras at Caernarfon station on 13 October 1997, when the track as far as Dinas was ceremonially opened.

The first section of the WHR from Caernarfon to Dinas follows the route of the standard-gauge line from Caernarfon station to Afonwen, closed in 1964. That line had itself replaced the Nantlle Railway, which was engineered by George Stephenson and his brother Robert and opened in the 1820s. The track, of 107cm gauge, brought slate and copper from the Nantlle Valley to the slate quay at Caernarfon. Some of the horse-drawn trains conveyed passengers.

The Nantlle Railway’s route was converted to standard gauge to form part of the new line from Afonwen in 1866. Passenger trains from Afonwen terminated at Pant station, in this vicinity. In the late 1860s work began to connect this line to the main Caernarfon station (where Morrisons supermarket now stands), via a tunnel underneath Y Maes (the square outside the castle). This allowed trains to continue to Bangor, or access Victoria Dock. The tunnel now hosts a local road.

The WHR’s new station building was officially opened in June 2019, replacing temporary buildings.

Metal bridges for the reopened railway were fabricated by Caernarfon’s renowned Brunswick Ironworks, which occupied a site across the road from the WHR station for most of the 20th century.

Most WHR trains are hauled by Garratt articulated locomotives (as shown in the photo above), a type originally manufactured by Beyer Peacock of Manchester. Charles Frederick Beyer, co-founder of Beyer Peacock, lived near Llangollen for the last years of his life and is buried in Llantysilio churchyard.

Postcode: LL55 2YD    View Location Map

Ffestiniog Railway on HistoryPoints.org

Welsh Highland Railway website

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