North Wales Coast Railway: Colwyn Bay to Bangor

NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY ROUTE GUIDE

Rheilffordd arfordir gogledd Cymru

4: COLWYN BAY - LLANDUDNO AND BANGOR

Page updated August 2009

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with
kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

Through Colwyn Bay (61.5 miles) the railway runs on embankment right along the shore giving sunbathers and promenade-strollers a view of passing trains, before striking inland in company with the new road. The 'obelisk' which occupies a prominent position on the hillside to the right of the line looks like some ancient monument, but in fact the 64-feet-high tower was built in the early 1993 by the owners of nearby Bodysgallen Hall Hotel (a historic house which was dontated in 2008 by the National Trust, whilst continuing to operate as a luxury hotel and spa) on whose land it stands. On the approach to Llandudno Junction, the branch line from Blaenau Ffestiniog comes in on the left-hand side, just before a railway goods yard which was only created in the 1980s but is now no longer served by trains.

From Llandudno Junction (65.5 miles - known to all as 'The Junction') there are two branch lines: a short one past the pleasant small town of Deganwy to the elegant resort of Llandudno, and a longer one, the Conwy Valley line, which climbs the valley of the Conwy river through Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed to reach Blaenau Ffestiniog and the connection with the narrow-gauge Ffestiniog Railway.

Llandudno Junction station, which has a refreshment room, is a good place to watch and photograph the trains. South of the station, reached by the bridge over the line, beyond the site of Llandudno Junction locomotive shed (see our associated 6G website) now an 'entertainment complex' is the Conwy reserve of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. This was created in the 1980s by reclaiming land from the sea, the material coming from the works to create the new road tunnel under the estuary.

Trains bound for Llandudno diverge to the right here, passing an antiques centre which was once a rail-served banana warehouse, for the short but scenic journey of just over three miles along the shore of the Conwy estuary through the small resort of Deganwy with its station (usually a request stop) and marina, to the terminus at Llandudno, a well-preserved Victorian seaside resort with many attractions including a fine promenade, good hotels, a pier, and the Great Orme, a huge rock outcrop towering above the sea and served by a cable tramway to the summit.

The line towards Bangor has to cross the wide estuary of the Conwy river to reach the historic town of Conwy, and the line's engineer Robert Stephenson decided on a 'Tubular Bridge' - the line runs inside a rectangular wrought-iron tube. Alongside lies Thomas Telford's earlier suspension bridge for the London - Holyhead road.

Beyond the bridge, the only route for the railway lay alongside the medieval Conwy Castle, piercing the town walls: Stephenson attempted to harmonise the railway with the castle. The new road, at this point, is in tunnel, in fact in a tube laid on the river bank, but it makes its presence felt again as the line follows the coast through Penmaenmawr, where a quarry (no longer working in 2009, although it has continued to dispatch occasional trainloads) supplied the railway with granite track ballast, and the little resort of Llanfairfechan.

Beyond here can be seen, to the right of the line, the estate of Penrhyn Castle, preserved by the National Trust, is its main attraction for tourists. Built by Thomas Hopper between 1820 and 1845 for the wealthy Pennant family, who made their fortune from Jamaican sugar and Welsh slate, the castle is crammed with fascinating things such as a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria. The stable block houses an industrial railway museum, a model railway museum and a dolls’ museum displaying a large collection of 19th- and 20th-century dolls. The 18.2ha (45 acres) of grounds include parkland, an extensive exotic tree and shrub collection and a Victorian walled garden.

Bangor (80.75 miles) is the first city we encounter since leaving Chester. The station here is sandwiched between two tunnels; at one time the area alongside the station was a busy steam locomotive depot and goods yard: the buildings and some of the tracks survive. Bangor is an old city,with a Cathedral (founded in the year 525) and a University as well as a historic pier which has recently been fully restored.

From Bangor station, frequent bus services are available to the ancient town of Caernarfon with its mediaeval castle, and to the narrow-gauge Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon) with its Garratt steam locomotives repatriated from South Africa. Also reached by bus is Llanberis which has two tourist railways, the Snowdon Mountain Railway and the Llanberis Lake Railway as well as the Welsh National Slate Museum.

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