"Holyhead line" redirects here. For modern railway line of the same route, see North Wales Coast Line.
Contemporary spellings of place names are used; in many cases, these changed substantially in the twentieth century.
The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to the cost of building the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait. The company had relied on Government support in facilitating the ferry service, and this proved to be uncertain. The company opened its main line throughout in 1850. It relied on the co-operation of other railways to reach London, and in 1859 it was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway.
There were extensive mineral deposits at a number of locations south of the C&HR main line, and the C&HR and the LNWR encouraged the building of branch lines to serve them. Llandudno was an early centre of leisure and holiday travel, and in the last decades of the nineteenth century, that traffic became increasingly important. In the twentieth century, the North Wales coast became a popular holiday destination, reached largely by rail travel.
In 1970, the Britannia Tubular Bridge suffered a serious fire, and the line was closed at that point until 1972 when a new structure at the same site was brought into use.
The container traffic at Holyhead has ceased, and passenger connections to the Irish ferries are much reduced, but the entire original main line is still in use for passenger traffic, together with the Llandudno branch and the Conwy Valley line to Blaenau Ffestiniog.
and 25 Related for: Chester and Holyhead Railway information
The ChesterandHolyheadRailway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of Government dispatches between London and Ireland, as...
Central, Llandudno and Holyhead. On 23 September 1840, the first station at Chester was opened by the Chesterand Birkenhead Railway (CBR). One week later...
Holyhead Admiralty Pier railway station served the pier in the town of Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales, from 1851 to 1925 on the ChesterandHolyhead Railway...
on services from Holyhead to South Wales and Birmingham International. The station was opened by the ChesterandHolyheadRailway on 1 May 1848; it was...
critical link of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway's route, enabling trains to directly travel between London and the port of Holyhead, thus facilitating...
Shrewsbury andChesterRailway used a section of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway to reach Chester itself. On 24 May 1847 a bridge on that railway over the...
railway station on the North Wales Coast Line serves the town of Prestatyn in North Wales. The station was built on the ChesterandHolyheadRailway (CHR)...
completion of the Chester & HolyheadRailway in 1850, and the building of Holyheadrailway station, did the Irish Mail return to Holyhead, operated from...
multiple units. Cardiff-Holyhead: Cardiff Central to Holyhead, via Newport, Hereford, Shrewsbury, Chester, Llandudno Junction and Bangor with some southbound...
The bridge had been designed and built by famed-railway engineer Robert Stephenson for the ChesterandHolyheadRailway. A Royal Commission inquiry found...
roadstead in addition to Holyhead's pre-existing 276 acres (112 ha) old harbour. With the opening of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway in August 1848 on Anglesey...
and Saturday mornings only. The town gained its first railway as early as 1848 with the opening of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway, but the railway company...
acquisition of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway by the LNWR, and primarily saw use on the Irish Mail route from London to Holyhead. They were the first...
closure followed in 1983. The ChesterandHolyheadRailway opened its route in 1848 from Chester to Bangor, and to Holyhead in 1850. Its promoters saw the...
North Western Railway, giving it a direct route from London to Carlisle. In 1858, they merged with the ChesterandHolyheadRailwayand became responsible...
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, but problems with its use became all too apparent when a new bridge carrying the ChesterandHolyheadRailway across the...
intermediate stations on the ChesterandHolyheadRailway main line along the coast. Trains could run between Chesterand Bangor from the day the station...
The Conwy Railway Bridge, a tubular bridge, was built for the ChesterandHolyheadRailway by Robert Stephenson. The first tube was completed in 1848, the...
station was opened on 1 May 1848 as part of the ChesterandHolyheadRailway (now the North Wales Coast Line) and was named simply Holywell. A brick built signal...
marketed as the Conwy Valley line. The ChesterandHolyheadRailway was conceived to carry the Irish mail traffic to Holyhead, from where there was a ferry service...
operates the following routes: An hourly service between Holyhead, Bangor, Chester, Shrewsbury and Wrexham General; services continue alternately to Birmingham...
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