Blaenau Ffestiniog railway station serves the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales, and is the passenger terminus of the Conwy Valley Line from Llandudno Junction. Transport for Wales Rail operate through services to Llandudno Junction and Llandudno. The station is a joint station with the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway, which operates primarily tourist passenger services to Porthmadog throughout most of the year. A feature of the standard gauge service is the availability on trains and buses of the popular "Gwynedd Red Rover" day ticket.
Facilities
The standard gauge side has a single platform (Platform 1) opening directly onto the station car park and the High Street. There is a standard gauge run-round loop used by occasional locomotive-hauled charter trains. The narrow gauge side has an island platform (Platforms 2 and 3) with an overall roof; this platform is reached by a footbridge, and also from the standard gauge platform and the town centre by a pedestrian level crossing at the terminal end. Narrow gauge trains normally use Platform 3. There is also a narrow gauge run-round loop.
Train running information on the standard gauge side is provided via digital CIS displays, timetable posters, automatic announcements and public telephone. There is a single waiting shelter on the platform and there is step-free access to all three platforms (to the narrow-gauge side via a foot crossing at the south end).
History
The evolution of Blaenau's passenger stations was complex, with five different railway companies providing services to the area.
Ffestiniog Railway
The first railway to be built in Blaenau Ffestiniog was the Festiniog Railway, which opened for slate traffic in 1836. The main line terminated at Dinas to the north west of the town (now buried under the spoil tip) with a branch line from a junction near Glanypwll to Duffws near the town centre. The first passenger trains ran from Porthmadog to Dinas on 6 January 1865 and the passenger station at Duffws opened in January 1866. Until 1870 alternate trains ran to Dinas and Duffws, but by the end of 1870 Dinas passenger station had closed and all passenger services from then on terminated at Duffws.
An interchange station with the LNWR (known as Stesion Fain) was opened in 1881, and an interchange with the GWR opened in 1883.
In 1931, Duffws closed as a passenger station, and the GWR exchange station became the terminus.
The main Duffws station building survives as a grade 2 listed building, now serving as a public toilet block on the central car park.
Festiniog and Blaenau Railway
Meanwhile, the narrow gauge Festiniog and Blaenau Railway had opened from Llan Ffestiniog to Blaenau Ffestiniog on 29 May 1868. Its station was located where the FR foot access gate is now located. The line was initially worked by the Ffestiniog Railway and all slate traffic on the F&BR throughout its existence was carried in FR-owned wagons. The FR station and F&BR station were both called Duffws, although they were several hundred yards apart and passengers walked between the two. On 1 September 1882 the standard gauge Bala Ffestiniog Line reached Llan Ffestiniog from the south. The following year the narrow gauge line was converted to standard gauge, with the station re-opening on 10 September 1883.
Conwy Valley Line
In 1879 the London and North Western Railway's (LNWR) Conwy Valley Line from became the first standard gauge railway to reach the town. It opened a temporary station near the mouth of Ffestiniog Tunnel, while it established its slate yards at the northern end of Blaenau Ffestiniog and built its passenger station near Glanypwll, across the road from the Ffestiniog Railway (FR). The LNWR and FR co-operated to build parallel stations ("Blaenau Festiniog" by the LNWR and "Stesion Fain" by the FR) to form an interchange. This opened in 1881, and the temporary station at the tunnel mouth closed. The LNWR had built this line in order to seek a share of the Ffestiniog slate traffic (including the slate being carried by coastal steamer from Porthmadog to ports on the Irish Sea and elsewhere). To this end they established a slate wharf at Deganwy; and a feature of early LNWR operation of the line was the carriage of slate in narrow gauge wagons from Blaenau to Deganwy pick-a-back on standard gauge wagons. So highly did the LNWR rate the commercial prospects of Blaenau Ffestiniog that in the 1880s they established their own hotel in the town, now demolished; it features in LNWR publicity of the period.