After Bangor, the train turns right to cross the Menai Strait on to Ynys Mon, the island of Anglesey. The bridge here was the second and largest of Stephenson's tubular bridges, of four spans. The railway had to be over 100 feet above the water to allow the tallest warships to pass. Opened in 1850, the tubes were damaged beyond repair in a fire in 1970, caused by trespassers. The piers were retained for the new steel arched bridge, opened in 1972, which carries just a single rail track, plus an upper road desk which was added in 1980.
On the island, the line serves a series of villages, beginning with the one which is world famous for its long name, Llanfairpwll... which was mostly contrived by Victorian railway publicists, and has since been beaten for length by a halt on the narrow-gauge Fairbourne and Barmouth Railway! At Valley, a siding serves the nuclear power station, a train once or twice weekly carries nuclear waste to Sellafield in heavy steel flasks for reprocessing. The final stretch of line is over a causeway onto the small 'Holy Island' and into the terminus at Holyhead (105.5 miles from Crewe) where the trains meet the ships and catamarans on the busy Irish service.
