The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early railway company conceived to improve transmission of government dispatches between London and Ireland, as well as ordinary railway objectives. Its construction was hugely expensive, chiefly due to the cost of building the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait. The company had relied on Government support in facilitating the ferry service, and this proved to be uncertain. The company opened its main line throughout in 1850. It relied on the co-operation of other railways to reach London, and in 1859 it was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway.
There were extensive mineral deposits at a number of locations south of the C&HR main line, and the C&HR and the LNWR encouraged the building of branch lines to serve them. Llandudno was an early centre of leisure and holiday travel, and in the last decades of the nineteenth century, that traffic became increasingly important. In the twentieth century, the North Wales coast became a popular holiday destination, reached largely by rail travel.
In 1970, the Britannia Tubular Bridge suffered a serious fire, and the line was closed at that point until 1972 when a new structure at the same site was brought into use.
The container traffic at Holyhead has ceased, and passenger connections to the Irish ferries are much reduced, but the entire original main line is still in use for passenger traffic, together with the Llandudno branch and the Conwy Valley line to Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Communication with Dublin
In 1800 acts of the United Kingdom and Irish parliaments determined the union of the two countries; this took effect on 1 January 1801. Prior to that time, the countries had been in personal union, having a shared sovereign but independent governments.
There had long been a necessity for convenient communication between London and Dublin, and the union gave further emphasis to the need, specifically for government mails. The sea crossing of the Irish Sea was difficult because of the poor harbour facilities on both sides, and the road approach to the harbour at Holyhead, Wales was long and difficult. In 1815 Thomas Telford was commissioned to build an improved road between London and Holyhead, and also between Lancashire and Holyhead. The A5 road as it existed in the 1950s shares much of the heritage of Telford's London to Holyhead route. Telford's road was completed from Shrewsbury to Bangor in 1819, and across Anglesey in 1828, including the Stanley Embankment from Anglesey to Holy Island.
The London route avoided Conway, crossing the River Conwy at Betws-y-Coed, but the Lancashire route required to cross the river, and both routes needed to cross the Menai Strait. Telford built bridges for these crossings. The Conwy Bridge and the Menai Bridge were both completed in 1826. As part of the same project, Holyhead Harbour was substantially improved in 1821, and subsequently extended and further improved in 1831 and 1847.
Although other routes to Ireland were used (Liverpool in particular), Holyhead was now the obvious, and easiest, port of access. On the Irish side, Howth Harbour, north of Dublin had been used, but increasingly the small harbour at Dún Laoghaire south of the city was used; it had been renamed Kingstown in 1821 in honour of a visit by King George IV.
The stagecoach transit from London to Holyhead had been 45 hours, and was now cut to 36 hours, and by 1832 to 28 hours. However, in 1838 there was through railway connection from London to Liverpool (over the London and Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway) transforming the land journey time on the British side. The Post Office, and the Admiralty, responsible at that time for operating the packet boats, transferred the main part of the traffic to Liverpool.
Route to the port A number of railway schemes were proposed to reach a harbour, many of them with major practical disadvantages. Late in 1836 a commission was appointed to determine the best route, and Charles Blacker Vignoles became the Engineer to the commission. The preliminary findings of the commission were ambiguous and did not result in a clear proposal for a railway.
Domestic railways progressed, however, and in September and October 1840 the Chester and Birkenhead Railway and the Chester and Crewe Railway respectively opened. They connected to the Grand Junction Railway, and a railway network was taking shape. A number of schemes to reach a North Wales port were put forward; the Menai would be crossed using Telford's Menai (road) bridge, hauling coaches and wagons across by ropes. When there was talk of a second, railway, bridge, the poor state of the money market frightened off promoters.
Authorisation
In January 1840, the commissioners were still considering the matter, and were given strong advice that Holyhead was the only suitable North Wales harbour, and that a line there from Chester was the best option. Nonetheless, the matter was still not settled, and railway use of the Menai road bridge was still being considered. The prevarication, and suggestions of other routes, continued; but in the 1844 session of Parliament a Chester and Holyhead Railway was proposed by Robert Grosvenor, MP for Chester, and William O. Stanley, MP for Anglesey. On 4 July 1844 the (7 & 8 Vict. c. lxv) obtained royal assent. The line was to be 85 miles long; authorised capital was £2.1 million.
The approval excluded the crossing of the Menai while allowing the main sections to be started. The London and Birmingham Railway was permitted to subscribe £1 million of the authorised capital. After some hesitation, the L&BR took up the subscription, apparently motivated by the nascent South Wales Railway, which it feared might be a competitor.
A significant financial issue was the government mail contract, and there was unsavoury horse trading with senior government representatives. Just before passage of the authorising bill, the directors responded to a government suggestion to operate the railway by atmospheric traction. Robert Stephenson investigated and advised against it, and the idea was dropped. Construction and opening Work started on 1 May 1845.
The North Wales Mineral Railway had obtained parliamentary authority to build a line from a junction with the C&HR line at Saltney, near Chester, to Ruabon. By late 1846, the NWMR line was ready; the company had amalgamated with the Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Chester Railway to form the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway. Relying on the C&HR for final access to Chester, it requested that company to make the short section into Chester available, and on 4 November 1846 S&CR operation started.
The Chester station was to be joint with the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway and the other railways: the Chester and Birkenhead Railway (opened 30 September 1841), the Chester and Crewe Railway (opened 1 October 1840 and already absorbed into the Grand Junction Railway).
The station design was modified to be a joint station to accommodate all the traffic. Authorisation of construction of the station was by the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. ccliv), of 9 July. The station was opened, although not quite finished, on 1 August 1848.
The works on the line were always expected to be difficult, and progress was slow. In 1848, it was decided to open from Chester to Bangor. Captain Wynne of the Board of Trade visited for the required inspection for passenger opening, on 19 and 20 April 1848. He inspected the line as far as the Conway, his colleague Captain J. L. A. Simmons inspected the line westward from there. The inspectors were informed that the line would be worked by the London and North Western Railway.
By the London and North Western Railway Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. cciv) of 16 July 1846 the London and Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway merged to form the London and North Western Railway.
The Menai Bridge
In the 1845 session of Parliament, the company deposited plans for the crossing of the Menai. The geographical route was now clear enough, but the concept of the bridge design was not. Such a large span lent itself to the idea of a suspension bridge, and Stephenson considered whether the deck of such a structure could be stiffened so as to carry the concentrated loads of a railway train, but decided against it. Any arched design was objected to by the supposed restriction on navigation it might impose. Stephenson was beginning to think of a bridge structure in the form of a straight tube; the unusual depth of the beam would give sufficient bending strength. John Laird, a shipbuilder and C&HR board member, told Stephenson of the case of the launch of a steamship, the Prince of Wales. The launch went astray, and the ship ended up supported on ground at bow and stern, over a length of 180 feet, acting as a beam without distress.
In the parliamentary process, Stephenson was naturally challenged as to the feasibility of his tubular bridge, but succeeded in convincing sceptical members, and the (8 & 9 Vict. c. xxxiii) received royal assent on 30 June 1845.
After some experimentation, rectangular tubes (as opposed to circular or elliptical) were decided on, and a one-sixth scale model was tested to destruction. This gave Stephenson confidence in the concept, and auxiliary support chains earlier thought necessary were dispensed with. The erection would be performed by hydraulic jacks.
Dee bridge failure
A bridge over the River Dee near Chester was already in use. As it was in the section of route used by the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, trains had been using it since November 1846. It used cast iron beams supported by wrought iron ties in a composite structure. The weakness of cast iron in tension was well understood, and the ties were present to overcome that difficulty. The main beams were formed of three units bolted together end-to-end, and trussed by the wrought iron ties. The track was supported by oak decking timbers laid on the bottom flange of the main beams.
On 24 May 1847, one of the spans failed as a passenger train was crossing at . Six people were killed. The engine successfully crossed the bridge, but the progressive failure led to the bridge collapsing under the tender and following coaches. The probable cause is nowadays considered to be fatigue tension fracture of the beams, provoked by asymmetric loading by the deck timbers, a stress-raising feature in the profile of the beams, and relaxation of the tie bars, transferring nearly all the load to the cast beams alone. A painter had been working on a girder which cracked before the accident, and he actually measured a very large deflection of five and a half inches at the centre of the span when a train was passing.
Conwy bridge
While the parliamentary attention had been on the Menai crossing, the Conwy bridge (at the time spelt Conway) was to be erected first. Stephenson took up temporary residence at the site from 12 February 1848. On 6 March, the tubes were floated into position ready for raising. By 18 April, Stephenson was able to drive a demonstration train over the bridge. Public traffic over the bridge started on 1 May 1848.
Opening on Anglesey The line from Llanfair to Holyhead was opened to public traffic on 1 August 1848. As the Menai crossing was not yet ready, passengers and goods were conveyed across by coach and carts respectively. The Holyhead station was more than a mile from the pier, and the line was extended to reach it much later, in 1851.
Financial difficulties At this period the company found itself considerably overstretched financially, at a time when the money market was unfavourable to the raising of additional funds. The problem was severe, but was overcome when the London and North Western Railway agreed to take preference shares and contractors were paid in company debentures.