Llandudno is a seaside town situated on the North coast of Wales and I visited recently to take a few photos of what remains of the railway station which lies at the end of a 3-mile branch line which spurs off from Llandudno Junction.
Despite travelling extensively around the British Isles, I'd never been to Llandudno. I'd been to Llandudno junction however in the 80s trainspotting as it was a major railway centre for passenger and freight traffic and was one of the top 10 locations for spotters to travel to. It would be interesting to see how much it has changed and to see the rest of the branch for the first time.
I don't want to dwell too much on the history and the 'good old days' as I am attempting to take a snapshot of the railways today, but I thought I'd include a few older photos to illustrate the changes in the railways in the past 50 years. There are just three stations involved and I will cover one in each of three posts, but firstly, let's start with a little......
History
Llandudno is the largest seaside town in Wales and like many other traditional resorts came to prominence in Victorian times. The rail junction was built on the Chester and Holyhead Railway which opened in 1850, conceived to create a faster transport link for getting mail to Ireland via the Holyhead ferry.
Almost immediately, it was decided to run a branch line to Llandudno to transport the Victorian holidaymakers and also to serve the village of Deganwy and its wharf from where slate that was quarried in the area could be shipped to its buyers.
The branch opened in October 1858 with trains running to Llandudno junction from Conwy until another new station was built at Llandudno junction.
The line was absorbed into the London North Western Railway before in 1923 becoming part of the London Midland Scottish railway as part of the national railway's 'Grouping' where over 150 independent railway companies were grouped into 'TheBig Four'. Later of course, in 1948, they would all come together to form British Railways.
Llandudno Station in the 1950s (Llandudno Station in the 1950s (from 'An Historical Survey of Chester to Holyhead Railway Track Layouts and Illustrations')
Llandudno Station in 2011 (photograph courtesy of janfordsworld.blogspot.com)
My photo taken in October 2019
The first thing that is obvious is the station has halved in size! To give you some impression of the overall size back in the 1950s, we can see from this aerial shot I found, the length of the platforms and canopies.
Photo uncredited
Notice the goods yard and carriage sidings at the bottom of the photo. At this time, there were 5 platforms beneath 4 extended glass canopies.
I find it quite interesting that despite the importance of Llandudno as a seaside destination, the station wasn't exactly as imposing and grandiose as other similar locations such as Scarborough.
So on to today.....
Keep the aerial image in your head and let's see what remains!
The rest of the photos in this post were taken by me.
This is it! These platforms and canopies are all that remain and are the ones at the bottom end of the station, next to where the goods yard was which now looks like this......
A wasteland but I do like the graffiti!
At the opposite, north on the aerial photo where the other platforms were is a car-park.
It wasn't all boring, typical modern railway though. At the throat of the junction, I got a nice surprise. One of very few 'proper' manual signal boxes and they were still using old-style semaphore signals as opposed to the usual colour light ones!
Can you spot the signal box in the aerial photo?
The good news didn't stop there. There were some nice original touches on the station concourse with a nod back to the station's former glory.
Original architectural features with clumsily merged with modern fittings such as the ubiquitous CCTV cameras and the ticket office. Barely used these days with the popularity of online booking!
The benches were old LMS style, probably harking back to the 1930s and painted in their original LMS maroon colour scheme.
And did I actually see any trains?
Yes, just this one. A simple multiple unit from Chester!
But if I'd bothered to travel those few extra miles down the branch back in the 80s, I might have seen some real 80s train porn like this shot from Dave Plimmer who, like many other railway photographers, seems to be pathetically obsessive about copyright, so shhhh ;-)
Further reading and resource.
If you are also a boring anorak with a penchant for trains and industrial architecture here are a few links for other pictures and a complete history of this branch line and the railways of North Wales.
Mainline Railways of North Wales
Wikipedia
From Chester to Holyhead: the Branch Lines, ISBN 0 86093 569 8
When you've awoken from this snooze fest in a few days, I will go back one stop down the line to Degawny for my next post.
Thanks for reading and please stay home and don't get the virus!
Take care, be safe and be happy.
@nathen007
PS It's on the @pinmapple !
[//]:# (!pinmapple 53.320676 lat -3.827066 long Llandudno Railway Station d3scr)