Qualla: Fishguard Harbour Railway Station

Fishguard Harbour Railway Station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. For a few years in the early twenty-first century, Fishguard Harbour was the only railway station in the United Kingdom where you could still light a cigarette and stand on the platform with it. The smoking ban took effect in Wales in April 2007. Network Rail enforced it everywhere it owned track. But Network Rail did not own Fishguard Harbour. Stena Line did, because Stena Line still owns the whole port, and Stena Line decided the only place its passengers could safely smoke was the platform itself. The alternative was a busy level crossing. The exemption may still apply: it certainly did when it was first reported in 2007.

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fishguard Harbour Railway Station: The Ocean Liner That Never Came

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nigel Thompson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Great Western Railway took over the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway in February 1898 with a specific dream: poach the trans-Atlantic passenger trade away from Plymouth and Southampton. Fishguard Bay sat closer to New York than either of those ports, and the GWR plan...

Image: Nigel Thompson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fishguard Harbour Railway Station: Opening Day, 1906

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger Cornfoot, CC BY-SA 2.0. Fishguard Harbour station opened on 30 August 1906, the day the Waterford and Cork ferry services arrived from their previous Welsh terminal. Three years later, on the exact anniversary of the opening, the Cunard liner RMS Mauretania called at Fishguard, the first of the great At...

Image: Roger Cornfoot | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fishguard Harbour Railway Station: The Direct Train to London

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Roger Cornfoot, CC BY-SA 2.0. For most of the twentieth century, Fishguard had through trains to London Paddington, an InterCity 125 service that ran by day and by night, connecting Wales to England's capital in a single straight shot. British Rail ran them, then First Great Western, then Wales and West, then...

Image: Roger Cornfoot | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fishguard Harbour Railway Station: The Petition That Worked

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ceridwen, CC BY-SA 2.0. By 2011 the Fishguard branch had been reduced to two boat trains a day, one at lunchtime and one in the small hours, both timed solely for ferry connections. Two teenagers from Moylegrove decided this was not enough. They gathered 1,440 signatures on a petition asking for proper ...

Image: ceridwen | CC BY-SA 2.0