The Chester & Connah's Quay Railway ran from Chester Northgate in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, to

Shotton, Flintshire Shotton is a town and community in Flintshire, Wales, within the Deeside conurbation along the River Dee, joined with Connah's Quay, near the border with England. It is located 5 miles (8 km) west of Chester and can be reached by road ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. It was in use for its full length from 1890 to 1992. At Dee Marsh Junction it connected with the

North Wales and Liverpool Railway The North Wales and Liverpool Railway (NWLR), was the name given to the joint committee formed to construct a railway between Bidston, on the Wirral Railway and Hawarden on the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's (MSLR) Chester & Co ...

. It then crossed the River Dee by means of

Hawarden Bridge Hawarden Bridge (; ) is a railway bridge over the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, near Shotton, Flintshire, Shotton, Flintshire, Wales. It was built by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (which later became the Great Central Railw ...

before joining the

Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway The Buckley Railway was opened from Buckley to a connection with the Chester to Holyhead main line on 7 June 1862, to convey coal and finished brickworks products from the Buckley area. Numerous short tramroads had existed in the area from the ...

at Shotton.

The line today

Chester - Fairfield Road bridge - geograph

Open portion

The only section of the Chester & Connah's Quay Railway which remains in use is between Dee Marsh Junction and Shotton, forming part of the Borderlands Line.

Closed portion

The rest of the line closed to passenger trains in 1968, but remained open to freight trains until 1992. Even though

steelmaking Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and/or scrap. Steel has been made for millennia, and was commercialized on a massive scale in the 1850s and 1860s, using the Bessemer process, Bessemer and open hearth furnace, Siemens-M ...

operations at the British Steel plant at Shotton ceased in March 1980, freight continued to use the double-tracked line until 20 April 1984. Goods services resumed on a single-track line on 31 August 1986 before final closure in June 1992. This was precipitated by the closure of

Ravenscraig steelworks The Ravenscraig steelworks, operated by David Colville & Sons, Colvilles and from 1967 by British Steel Corporation, consisted of an integrated iron and steel works and a hot strip steel, strip steel mill. They were located in Motherwell, North ...

Motherwell Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

, Scotland, as freight trains using the line ran between Ravenscraig and Shotton

rolling mill In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simi ...

Cycle path

Since the line between Chester and Dee Marsh closed, the track has been lifted and the route is now a cycle path, forming part of Route 5 of the

National Cycle Network The National Cycle Network (NCN) was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout the United Kingdom, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the charity Sustrans who were aided by a £42.5 million N ...

Junction maps

References

External links

Images of the line in its final operating days

National Cycle Network
Chester to Connah's Quay

on the Chester & Connah's Quay Railway

along the railway {{DEFAULTSORT:Chester And Connah's Quay Railway Great Central Railway Closed railway lines in North West England Early British railway companies Railway lines opened in 1890 Standard gauge railways in England Early Welsh railway companies