The Carnarvonshire Railway was a railway connecting

Caernarvon railway station Caernarvon railway station was a station on the former Bangor and Carnarvon Railway between Caernarfon, Gwynedd and Menai Suspension Bridge near Bangor. The station was closed to all traffic in January 1972. The station has since been demo ...

(terminus of the Bangor and Caernarvon Railway line from Bangor) with Afon Wen.

History

The Carnarvonshire Railway was absorbed into the LNWR in 1869. At the grouping of the railways in 1921 the LNWR became part of the

LMS LMS may refer to: Science and technology * Labeled magnitude scale, a scaling technique * Learning management system, education software * Least mean squares filter, producing least mean square error * Leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer * Lenz ...

. At Afon Wen, a junction connected with the

Cambrian Line The Cambrian Line ( cy, Llinell y Cambrian), also known as the Cambrian Main Line ( cy, Prif Linell y Cambrian) and Cambrian Coast Line ( cy, Llinell Arfordir y Cambrian), is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury, England, westwards to Aber ...

( GWR) to

Pwllheli Pwllheli () is a market town and community of the Llŷn Peninsula ( cy, Penrhyn Llŷn) in Gwynedd, north-western Wales. It had a population of 4,076 in 2011 of whom a large proportion, 81%, are Welsh language, Welsh speaking. Pwllheli is the pl ...

in one direction and to Porthmadog in the other, with the LNWR (and later LMS) having running rights to both. The line had two branches, one from Caernarfon to Llanberis, which was built by the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway and the other from Penygroes to Nantlle. The latter originally formed part of the narrow gauge Nantlle Railway, which between Penygroes and Caernarvon had been incorporated into the Carnarvonshire Railway and converted to standard gauge.

Closure

Regular passenger service on the Llanberis branch ceased in the 1930 (but summer passenger excursions from

Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2011 UK census, the community – which includes Gogarth, Penrhyn Bay, Craigsi ...

etc. ran from 1932 until 1939 and again from 1946 until 1962). Likewise the Nantlle branch passenger service also ceased in 1932. The remaining lines and services (Afon Wen to Caernarvon) were shut completely as part of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

in December 1964.

Trackbed re-use

A section of the line, from Caernarfon to Dinas, was incorporated into the reopened narrow gauge Welsh Highland Railway as the first phase of the line, in 1997. Several miles of the trackbed southwards from Dinas have been used to improve the A487 road. Some original sections remain and have been used as part of National Cycle Route 8. The cycle route ( Lôn Eifion) and the narrow gauge railway share the old trackbed south of Caernarfon to Dinas. The tunnel under the centre of Caernarfon has been reopened, for road traffic.

References

Notes

Sources