Porthmadog Harbour railway station

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Porthmadog Harbour

Location

Place

Porthmadog

Local authority

Gwynedd

Operations

Managed by

Ffestiniog Railway

Owned by

Ffestiniog Railway

Platforms in use

History

Key dates

Opened 1865

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Porthmadog Harbour railway station

A Ffestiniog Railway train at Porthmadog Harbour railway station

Porthmadog harbour station is the southern passenger terminus of the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway, which was built in 1836 to carry dressed slate from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog for export by sea.

The station is built at the western end of the Cob, the great embankment across the Traeth Mawr, on a peninsula from Ynys Madoc constructed in 1842 to form a slate wharf and a harbour wall. It was opened for passenger service on January 6, 1865 and was closed to passengers on September 15, 1939 but continued in use as the principal offices of the Ffestiniog Railway Company and the home of the Manager (Mr Robert Evans) including throughout the years of almost total closure from August 1, 1946 to September 24, 1954. The station reopened for passengers on July 23, 1955.

The present stone buildings, replacing earlier wooden buildings dismantled and reused elsewhere on the railway, date from 1878/79 and an upper floor was added in 1884. They were linked to the former goods shed by way of a major extension in 1975. Passenger facilities include a booking and enquiry office, a large tourist and hobby shop, and a large cafeteria with licensed bar. The erection of the platform awning was completed in 1988.

The harbour station is the operational headquarters of both the Ffestiniog and the Welsh Highland Railways, and in 2009 it is planned to link the station to the entirely rebuilt Welsh Highland Railway, as it was before that railway was closed to passenger traffic in 1936. This will allow through trains to Beddgelert, Rhyd Ddu, Waunfawr, Dinas and Caernarfon.

Train control on the Ffestiniog Railway has for many years been centralised at Porthmadog. With the commencement of public services on the Welsh Highland Railway between Caernarfon and Dinas in 1997, all train operations on the Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon) have been directly controlled from the central control office at Porthmadog harbour station, and this continues.