‘Wales beyond Railways’: The rise and fall of branch lines in north Wales 1858-1966

There are currently around 120 miles of railway in north Wales, of which 30 count as branch lines miles – from Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog. In 1918 the latter figure was 165 miles from a total of 250 miles in the network of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). So, branch lines in the region have gone from double the total mileage to just a quarter.

It is hard to imagine how hard rival companies fought over many of these forgotten routes, how railways enlivened and challenged remote communities, and how they dominated life in north Wales from 1860 to 1920 as much as religion, education and politics. It is this story that Philip M Lloyd’s Branch Lines of the Chester and Holyhead Railway covers.

There was a tension at the heart of the development of many of these lines. Local people and businesses wanted routes that served their needs, but from its remote Euston base, the LNWR was more concerned with preventing any incursion into north Wales that might challenge its dominance of the lucrative Irish traffic. So, it fought hard to ensure that it controlled any connection to its main line between Chester and Holyhead. Through its Machiavellian tactics, it was entirely successful in creating a monopoly of traffic in the region.

Once in charge, the LNWR through its chairman articulated its strategy. Speaking in Caernarfon in 1870, Richard Moon noted that the LNWR aimed to ‘bring in coal and take out slate without disturbing artists or tourists’. (p96)

Having revealed the larger strategy, the book shows how the power of railways affected local people – from the death of a stationmaster at Griffith’s Crossing in 1859 in an unsuccessful bid to save a woman from being hit by a train, (p116) to the drama of crashes at Bryncir in 1866 (p125) and Llanerchymedd in 1877 that caused multiple deaths.(p149) There were major construction projects too, with at least four deaths in the Eyarth cutting between Ruthin and Corwen that finished in 1864 (p41), and a similar number in the massive tunnel at Blaenau Ffestiniog that was completed in 1879. But there were lighter moments too, such as the ceremonial burial of rotten pieces of ham at Llanrwst station in 1878 (p99) and the arrival of a hot air balloon near Derwen in 1907, which was mistaken by at least one local as the second coming of Christ. Once the truth was revealed, the local station staff sent the balloon and its owner back to London in a freight truck. (p57) The unfortunate Kinnerton station was branded the ‘dullest station in the world’ in a matrimonial case in 1904, in order to explain the ungentlemanly behaviour of a young man, who had worked at the station, towards his betrothed.(p64)

Political issues were never far away from the operation of railways. Many of the promoters of the branch lines considered them as the means to ‘civilise’ Welsh people. As one local worthy noted on the opening of the Anglesey Central Railway in 1864, ‘he never saw any country so much in want of civilization as a certain portion of the line through which they came that day.’ (p148) For many of these promoters, civilisation meant primarily ending the use of the Welsh language. Senior railway manager Martin Smith proudly admitted in 1869 that he had refused to appoint a significant number of staff simply because they could not speak English. (p60)

Sometimes the railway was a largely innocent party to major social upheavals, such as the arrest of striking miners in Mold in 1869. They were being taken from court to prison via rail when the station was besieged by protestors, several of whom died when the army opened fire.(p61) There was a similar incidents, but without fatal consequences, at Bethesda station during the great slate strike in 1902, and at Bodfari station during protests against the payment of tithes in 1887.(p62)

Having taken around fifty years to complete, most of the branch lines disappeared across a similar period after the First World War. From 1923, the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) made herculean efforts to tackle the challenge of road vehicles. In north Wales it introduced innovations such as camping coaches to boost tourism, bought a major bus operator, and became very focused on meeting the needs of its customers – a good example being its operation to move an entire farm from Denbighshire to Anglesey in one day in 1937. (p168) But it could not avoid closures, of which there were several from 1930 onwards. Perhaps the saddest was the loss of the ‘Mountain Railway’ from Prestatyn to Dyserth in 1930 where former passengers preferred private motoring or buses to the trundling ascent of the single coach along the railway. (p78)

The outbreak of war in 1939 boosted the railway in north Wales as elsewhere, and this continued into peacetime until road transport increasingly weakened its position from 1955. The pace of closures increased, and Beeching is often cited as the villain. But in north Wales he merely finished a job that had already started. Just as the railways in north Wales were largely built to meet external priorities, so closures were also done with little regard to regional need. For example, government rejected the case for a railway to connect two lines in Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1954, only to find the money in 1965 when the line was needed for the nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd. (p190)

In 1956, a British Railways brochure referred to the Lleyn Peninsula as ‘Wales beyond the railways’. (p195) Ten years later that description applied to almost everywhere in north Wales away from the coast. The branch lines that transformed and sustained rural communities for so many years had gone. This book shows how important they were to the region, how they could have been better, and which ones should never have been closed.

Branch Lines of the Chester and & Holyhead Railway is available to order here.