Branch Lines of the Chester & Holyhead Railway

This book complements the author’s previous and completes the story of railways associated with the LNWR in north Wales. It does so by breaking down developments to three districts working from east to west across the region. It examines the background to the construction of the branch lines in the context of relevant wider railway developments, provides an account of the operation of each of the lines with reference to significant incidents on the railway and the relationship of the branch to the communities it served. The dominance of railways peaked around 1914 and the process of decline from then was relatively rapid and featured several rounds of closures of stations and branches, culminating in the Beeching cuts of the 1960s that eventually left north Wales with fewer than fifty miles of branch railways. Maps and tables provide an overview of the detail contained in the text and the 150 photographs. The book concludes with an overview of the railway system in north Wales.