BANGOR (GWYNEDD) RAILWAY STATION

'Bangor railway station' in Bangor, Gwynedd is the last mainland station on the London Euston to Holyhead North Wales Coast line. There are frequent services to Chester via Llandudno Junction, Colwyn Bay, Rhyl, Prestatyn and Flint, as well as across Anglesey to Holyhead. There are also through services to London, Cardiff, Crewe and Manchester Piccadilly.
The station was opened on May 1 1848 by the Chester and Holyhead Railway and lies between two tunnels, each of which has two running lines, an ''up'' line and a ''down'' line. Through the station there are also two further lines used for goods traffic, particularly the carriage of nuclear fuel flasks to and from Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey.
The station occupies a rather exposed site with the wind channeled between high ground on both sides and exposed to the prevailing wet westerly winds. A full platform length canopy on Platform 1 provides protection for travellers heading east and south to Chester and beyond, but travellers heading north onto Anglesey on Platform 2 have only two bays of canopy to shelter under. An enclosed pedestrian bridge links the two platforms. For cyclists there are a row of cycle kennels at the northern end of Platform 1.

Contents

History

External links

Notes

History

The station, built at a cost of £6,960 and opened on 1 May1848, initially served only an up and down line to Chester. The station was expanded as branch lines were opened:

★ From Menai Bridge railway station to Caernarfon (Carnarvonshire Railway) (1848)

★ From Gaerwen to Amlwch (Anglesey Central Railway) (1866)

★ From Holland Arms to Red Wharf Bay and Benllech (Red Wharf Bay Railway) (1909)

★ To Bethesda (Bethesda Branch) (1884)
The present building on platform 1 was the main building with a forecourt on the site of the present car park. Between 1924 and 1927 an additional loop line and platform was constructed on the site of the forecourt with a new frontage facing Deiniol Road. Ultimately there were four platforms and a small bay to serve the main line and branch lines.^[1][2]
By the 1950s there was an extensive goods yard, a five-road engine shed (on the site of the steel mill), a turntable, three-road goods shed, two signal boxes, an extra footbridge and a subway connecting platforms. There was a total of nine separate through routes from one tunnel to the other.
With the closure of the branch lines in the 1960s and 1970s, the station was reduced to having two operational platforms only, with the track and platform on the pre-1920s forecourt being converted back to something like its original use.

External links

Notes

1. Bangor: A Portrait in Old Picture Postcards, John Cowell, , , S.B. Publications, 1990, ISBN 1-870708-58-X
2. Bangor: A Pictorial History (Volume 2), John Cowell, , , , 1997, ISBN 0-9518592-3-4