Blaenau Ffestiniog passenger stations

North west Wales experienced a slate boom in the first half of the nineteenth century. Three sites stood out as experiencing the most explosive growth: Dinorwic near Llanberis, Penrhyn near Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Dinorwic and Penrhyn quarries dealt with the problem of getting their products to market by building their own railways to take slates to ports: the Padarn Railway and the Penrhyn Railway respectively. The LNWR built branches seeking to tap the output, but the quarry owners maintained a tight hold, lest they become beholden to others.

The position at Blaenau Ffestiniog was different in three respects:

In Blaenau, therefore,

In addition, neither Llanberis nor Bethesda experienced the explosive population growth witnessed in Blaenau, leading railway promoters to believe a significant potential passenger market existed beyond workmen's trains.

This must all be seen in the context of a boom industry, where heady hopes affected normally sober minds.

In all, five separate railway companies built lines to tap Blaenau's seemingly limitless potential:

In addition

All five railway companies built stations in the town, all within an 800-metre radius, most within a 400-metre radius. For this purpose the "boundary stations" immediately outside Blaenau are Tanygrisiau (FR), Roman Bridge (LNWR and Network Rail), Tan-y-Manod (F&BR) and Manod (GWR), all of these except Roman Bridge are sometimes referred to as being in Blaenau.

Whether this counts as eight, nine, ten or eleven stations depends on how the interchanges are counted.

Apart from purely informal names, such as "Top Station" and "Bottom Station" used by residents of Creswell, Derbyshire to distinguish their two stations, the stations in Blaenau are especially confusing because of railway practice, anglicising, different sources, the passage of time and names elsewhere.

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