Pont-y-Pant railway station is a single platform passenger station in the

Lledr Valley The Lledr Valley () is a valley in Snowdonia in north Wales. It runs from the top of the Crimea Pass, north of Blaenau Ffestiniog down to Betws-y-Coed. The A470 road follows the line of the valley, as does the railway line from Blaenau Ffestini ...

, Wales, on the Conwy Valley line from

Llandudno Junction Llandudno Junction ( cy, Cyffordd Llandudno), once known as Tremarl, is a village in the county borough of Conwy, Wales. It is part of the ancient parish of Llangystennin, and it is located south of Llandudno. It adjoins Deganwy and is to the ...

Blaenau Ffestiniog Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, Wales. Once a slate mining centre in historic Merionethshire, it now relies much on tourists, drawn for instance to the Ffestiniog Railway and Llechwedd Slate Caverns. It reached a population of 12,000 ...

, which is operated by

Transport for Wales Rail Transport for Wales Rail Limited, branded as Transport for Wales and TfW Rail ( and ), is a Welsh publicly owned train operating company, a subsidiary of Transport for Wales (TfW), a Welsh Government-owned company. It commenced operations of ...

. The station house is well maintained and used as a private dwelling.

History

The station was opened on 22 July 1879 when the

London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the ...

opened an extension of the Conwy Valley line from to . The station was the loading point for slate from the Rhiw-goch quarry on the opposite side of the valley. The slate was brought across the river by carts which crossed a substantially built bridge. The bridge is not shown on the 1888 OS Six-inch map but it is on the 1901 edition. Both maps show sidings to the north of the station on the eastern side of the line. The station was host to a LMS

caravan Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

from 1934 to 1936 followed by two caravans from 1937 to 1939. A camping coach was also positioned here by the

London Midland Region The London Midland Region (LMR) was one of the six regions created on the formation of the nationalised British Railways (BR), and initially consisted of ex- London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) lines in England, Wales and Northern Irel ...

in 1954.

Location

The station, which is operated as an unstaffed halt and as a

request stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, st ...

, is across the

River Lledr The ( en, River Lledr, italic=yes) is a river in north-west Wales and the second major tributary of the River Conwy. It is about 10 miles or 16 km long, and flows in a generally easterly direction. The has its source on the eastern slo ...

from the

A470 The A470 (also named the Cardiff to Glan Conwy Trunk Road) is a trunk road in Wales. It is the country's longest road at and links the capital Cardiff on the south coast to Llandudno on the north coast. While previously one had to navigate t ...

main road and the bridge is a quarter of a mile to the north of the station. There is no local village but the station serves a number of nearby isolated properties, and is also useful to walkers, owing to its proximity to a surviving section of the

Sarn Helen Sarn Helen refers to several stretches of Roman road in Wales. The route, which follows a meandering course through central Wales, connects Aberconwy in the north with Carmarthen in the west. Despite its length, academic debate continues as t ...

Roman road, and to the nearby village of

Dolwyddelan Dolwyddelan ( ; ; ) – in Victorian times, often spelled Dolyddelen – is a village and community in Conwy county borough, Wales, on the main A470 road between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Betws-y-Coed. As a community, the population o ...

Services

Five southbound and six northbound trains call on request Mondays to Saturdays (approximately every three hours), with four trains each way on Sundays. From 16 March 2019 however, the service was suspended and replaced by buses due to major flood damage in the Llanrwst area caused by Storm Gareth. The line remained closed for several months whilst repairs were carried out. Services resumed on 24 July 2019. Further storm damage to the north (this time from

Storm Ciara Storm Ciara was a powerful and long-lived extratropical cyclone that was the first of a pair of European windstorms to affect the United Kingdom and Ireland at peak intensity less than a week apart in early February 2020, followed by Storm De ...

) in February 2020 once again saw services suspended, with buses replacing trains from here until the line reopened again on 28 September 2020.

References

External links

Conwy Valley Railway
{{Conwy County Borough railway stations Dolwyddelan Railway stations in Conwy County Borough DfT Category F2 stations Railway request stops in Great Britain Former London and North Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1879 Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail

History

Location

Services

References

Further reading

External links