Tal-y-Cafn railway station is located at
Tal-y-Cafn, Wales, on the
Conwy Valley Line from
Llandudno Junction
Llandudno Junction (), once known as Tremarl, is a town in the Community (Wales), community of Conwy in Conwy County Borough, Wales. Llandudno Junction and neighbouring Deganwy are both part of the built-up area and community of Conwy.
It take ...
to
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 12,0 ...
.
History
Until the early 1960s the station had a
passing loop
A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains o ...
and two platforms, was known as Tal-y-Cafn and Eglwysbach and publicised as the station for
Bodnant Garden, which is in the parish of
Eglwysbach and a lengthy up-hill walk.
The station was renamed from ''Tal-y-Cafn & Eglwysbach'' to ''Tal-y-Cafn'' on 6 May 1974, although a name board on the disused platform still refers to Eglwysbach.
Facilities
The station buildings, mostly in private occupation, are well maintained. The Station Master's House is an all year round holiday let, available for booking through railwaystationcottages.co.uk
The station is officially an unstaffed halt (tickets must be purchased on the train or prior to travel), but the level crossing at the south end is still staffed (due to its location next to the river bridge) and retains its manually operated metal gates; the crossing keeper works out of an office in the main building. Up until 1993, the crossing also had protecting signals worked from a
ground frame on the platform; these were replaced by stop and fixed distant boards after the gates were run through by a train.
Digital CIS displays, a pay phone and timetable poster boards are provided to offer train running information. The station has step-free access to the platform from the station entrance, but is not wheelchair accessible.
Services
Six trains call in each direction Mon-Sat, with four departures each way on Sundays.
This station is a request stop only for trains running northbound towards Llandudno. Trains running southbound towards Blaenau Ffestiniog are required to stop here so that the crossing keeper can open the manual level crossing gates south of the station.
Following serious flood damage to the line in multiple locations caused by
Storm Gareth
A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an Astronomy, astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a th ...
in March 2019, services were suspended and replaced by buses until repair work was carried out. The line reopened in July 2019 after completion of the remedial works. Further storm damage to the line in the area (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 Den ...
) in February 2020 with services again being suspended until the line was reopened on 28 September 2020.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Conwy Valley Railway
{{Conwy Valley
Eglwysbach
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 1863
Railway stations served by Transport for Wales Rail