Llangollen railway- the future.

With the LR soon to push West to Corwen, what about the long term future of heading east and beyond Llangollen? Do buildings now build on the old trackbed route, now prevent this?

 

Yes there are buildings on the old trackbed East of Llangollen, however a diversion around them is feasible...... for the right price of course, which will be the stumbling block to anything happening in the short to medium term.

 

Between Llangollen and Trevor, the only blockage of the trackbed is a small garden directly opposite Llan Station on the otherside of the bridge, followed by a block of luxury appartments then an entire set of houses and part of a hotel. The hotel is now derelict and a Network Rail Engineer has proposed an alternative route around the houses but it will cost some serious money and also the Rive Dee is classified as a Site of Specific Scientific Interest iirc. After that we are all clear to Trevor.

Next section is Trevor to Acrefair. Stumbling blocks are first after Trevor station the loal houses back gardens have been extended onto the trackbed. After this there are 2 bridges missing. We have found a replacement for one from one of the local freight lines in the area, but the second one which crosses the A539 will need to be completely rebuilt. Also just before this bridge there is a new bungalow to be built which recently received planning permision iirc. We did speak of this a while back as there was some of us who wanted to form a petition but I think we were a little too late.

The final section is Acrefair to Ruabon. Acrefair station itself has been completely leveled, and Air Products put a warehouse on part of the site. However they supposedly said that if the day ever came they were prepared to move this and make the station site available again. After this there is a level crossing missing, and then there is the mainline connection. The Llangollen line used to join the Shrewsbury - Wrexham line direct, but this would not be allowed in today's world I suspect. However the surrounding embankment were cleared a couple of years back and there is room for a third track, just 2 road bridges between the junction and Ruabon station need to be replaced as currently they are only wide enough for 2 tracks.

At Ruabon station itself, the bay platform is still there as is the old turntable pit. all they are awaiting is for the railway to return. Whether this returns depends if someone with deep pockets ever becomes interested, or someone can persuade the 2 local councils to work together and manage to obtain some sort of European funding. Either way, it'll cost a lot of money and require a lot of effort and sadly I don't think either of these will come in the immediate future.

 

Isn't there also an overgrown branch line North of Corwen ?

 

Old line used to head off north to Ruthin (and the North Wales Coast ?) from what will form the new site for Corwen station, believe you can see the embankment for it on Google Earth,

 

Well, then. There's the answer: build back up to Ruthin and on!!
(Only joking....)

 

Unfortunately the old Ruthin embankment is being moved to the Llangollen bound embankment in order to allow us to build our new station there. The original Corwen station is presently occupied by Ivor Williams Trailers.

 

Before anyone gets too carried away about moving bridges go and read some of Sleepermonster's posts in the Bullhead memories section. The actual span is only a small part of the cost.

It's nice to dream but remember what starts out as a dream can turn in to a nightmare.

 

I have always been surprised/dismayed by the lack of will on the part of the local authorities (and the railway itself) to have a clear policy of actually wanting to reconnect to the national network.

Whilst acknowleding the physical/financial difficulty of doing this it just ain't going to happen without a planning policy which prevents yet further development on the route making it ever harder to achieve in the future.

Llan always seems to have something of a car problem during the tourist season could the mainline connection & more park & ride help both the railway & the town??

 

More out of idle curiousity than a desire to see it rebuilt, what state is the Ruthin line in ?, talk of disused parts of the route always centers on East to Ruabon or West to Bala and the northbound line seems a bit forgotten.

 

can't help thinking that this will be seen by all as a huge lost opporunity 25 years from now.

 

Too true, imagine being able to link in to the Aquaduct at Trevor, have a mainline connection and being able to offer a decent sized car park somewhere to offer a Park & Ride into Llan. Eisteddfod week especially this would be extremely handy. As you say though those that need this vision are those that can't see it. Shame

 

I can't help thinking that a party that puts heritage rail as one of its priorities (e.g. in terms of aiding these links to the mainline and extensions to towns to enable park-and-rides) would get a lot of support from railway preservationists (a fairly large bunch), and probably the general public as well. Support for rail is not very obvious with the current big two, however!