Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Porthmadog railway station

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Place
  
Porthmadog

Grid reference
  
SH565391

Managed by
  
Arriva Trains Wales

Local authority
  
Gwynedd

Station code
  
PTM

Number of platforms
  
2

Porthmadog railway station

Porthmadog railway station serves the town of Porthmadog on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales. The station is on the Cambrian Coast Railway with passenger services to Pwllheli, Harlech, Barmouth, Machynlleth, Shrewsbury and Birmingham.

Contents

Disambiguation

Considering the size of the town, Porthmadog has, and has had, a number of stations, all containing either "Porthmadog", or the earlier spelling "Portmadoc" in their name.

  • 1) This station, opened by the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway in 1867.
  • 2) The Festiniog Railway's Porthmadog Harbour railway station, originally only a shunting yard, but from 1865, offices and station.
  • 3) The Welsh Highland Railway Ltd's Porthmadog (WHHR), which although located on High Street, is also known as Tremadog Road. From the 2011 season, there is an additional platform here, accommodating the 7¼" miniature railway.

    • Additionally there were two interim stations either side of, what is now, the Network Rail / Welsh Highland Railway Cae Pawb crossing. These were referred to as:

  • 4) Portmadoc (New) (1923) to the south of the crossing.
  • 5) Portmadoc (New) (1929) to the north of the crossing.

    • with station (2) taking the title Portmadoc Old during the period these existed.

    Services

    Until the line between Bangor and Afonwen closed in 1964 there was a through service in the summer to and from London Euston via Crewe, Chester, Llandudno Junction and Caernarvon; the Pwllheli portion was detached at Afonwen and the forward coaches proceeded to Portmadoc (the spellings are those used at the time). There was also a summer service between London Paddington and Pwllheli, via Birmingham Snow Hill, Shrewsbury and Machynlleth.

    Nowadays trains call at Porthmadog roughly once every two hours Monday - Saturday, with a solitary train stopping in each direction on Sundays during the winter and two additional services each way in the summer (May - mid-September). During the daytime, trains run through to/from Shrewsbury and Birmingham International (joining or splitting from a portion to/from Aberystwyth), but in the evening they start/terminate at Machynlleth.

    From November 2013 until September 2014, main line services were suspended due to structural problems with the Pont Briwet viaduct near Llandecwyn. Network Rail and Gwynedd County Council were carrying out work to build a £20 million replacement for the current bridge a few metres downstream, but in doing so had caused the old one to sink and thus made it unsafe for both rail & road traffic. A replacement bus service operated during the railway's closure.

    References

    Porthmadog railway station Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA