Llandudno Junction - Spare Bay Platform

[Y Ddraig Coch]

A very simple question I cant find a definitive answer to anywhere through testimony or pictures.

There is a double bay platform at Llandudno Junction one half of it is used and numbered platform 2.

As long as I have been alive and even before my lifetime through old pictures I cant ever see the other half has ever had track layed even though there are buffers at the end.

Has the other half of the bay ever been used or even had track? If so what years between and any ideas on why I was lifted?

 

[John Webb]

A very simple question I cant find a definitive answer to anywhere through testimony or pictures.

There is a double bay platform at Llandudno Junction one half of it is used and numbered platform 2.

As long as I have been alive and even before my lifetime through old pictures I cant ever see the other half has ever had track layed even though there are buffers at the end.

Has the other half of the bay ever been used or even had track? If so what years between and any ideas on why I was lifted?

Have a look at https://signalbox.org/diagrams.php?id=249 which shows there was track in that bay in 1965. But why it was removed and when I don't know. I suspect it was the ending of steam and the move to multiple units, which did not need the crossover near the buffers "Station Frame 36:- Bolt Lock" any more to release the loco from the end of the train. Also the general reduction in train services in the 1960s no doubt played their part in reducing the need for complex infrastructure.

 

[30907]

Being able to run round a branch shuttle clear of the main line would have justified the second track originally - even if push-pull trains were in use at the time, you don't want to restrict yourself operationally, and the LNWR was in decidedly expansive mood along the N Wales coast back then.

 

[grumpyoldman01]

WG Rear's book 'The Conwy Valley Line' includes both a diagram of Llandudno Junction station and some BR LMR official photos taken on 14 September 1949; one photo shows the western end of the station very well, with a train parked in the platform identified as 'Bay 1' in the signal box diagram linked in the second post. The 1949 photo shows track in the platform identified as 'Bay 2' in the signal box diagram (the pages are not numbered, but it is the upper photo on the 11th page from the back).

According to Rear, the present Llandudno Junction station was opened on 1 November 1897. It had two large island platforms; the northern one had two bays at its western end and Rear's diagram matches the signal box diagram of 1965, and the southern one had two bays at its eastern end. I used the station on quite a few occasions between 1955 and 1965, and I recall using one of the eastern bays on a Blaenau Ffestiniog service, but I can't remember ever using one of the western facing ones; I remember seeing coaching stock in a western facing bay, but I can't recall whether any was ever in the platform identified as 'Bay 2' on the signal box diagram.

Rear records that services "diminished with the demise of steam, and the tracks serving the Down slow platform and bay platforms 2, 3 and 4 were removed"; he goes on to say that "No 1 bay line is now called platform 2". A date for these alterations isn't recorded

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Thanks to all that have inputted to this thread. Some interesting facts.

It was also interesting having had family working there and friends and friends of friends who used the junction regularly but none could remember accurately about the second bay platform.

I also had no idea going back there was eastern facing bays.

I love learning any history. Especially local railway history I can share with my children.