Qualla: Holyhead railway station

Holyhead railway station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoffrey Skelsey, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk off an Avanti train from London Euston at Holyhead station and within two minutes you can be checking in for a ferry to Dublin. The station and the ferry terminal share a building. The platforms run almost up to the quayside. There is a stainless steel pedestrian bridge called the Celtic Gateway connecting the joint terminal to the town centre five minutes' walk away. This is the western end of the British railway network, and it has been engineered, deliberately and over a century and a half, to be a single piece of infrastructure with the maritime crossing to Ireland. Trains arrive, ferries leave; ferries arrive, trains leave. The whole point of Holyhead is the handover.

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Image: Geoffrey Skelsey | CC BY-SA 4.0

Holyhead railway station: Three Stations in Eighteen Years

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The first Holyhead station opened on 1 August 1848, the day the Chester and Holyhead Railway reached the town. It was replaced almost immediately by a second station on 15 May 1851 - the original was inadequate within three years. The present station opened on 17 January 1866 und...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Holyhead railway station: Three Platforms, Three Different Operators

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. The track layout is unusual because the geography is unusual. Platform 1 sits on the western side of the building, separated from the other platforms by the ferry terminal and the inner harbour. It is normally used by Avanti West Coast services to London Euston. Platform 2 handle...

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Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

Holyhead railway station: The Schedule That Connects Two Countries

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit k.dowdell, CC BY-SA 3.0. Transport for Wales runs an hourly basic service from Holyhead eastward along the North Wales Main Line - the timetable thins out on winter Sundays but otherwise stays steady. Some early-morning and late-evening trains continue to Crewe; two services a day run through to Manchest...

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Image: k.dowdell | CC BY-SA 3.0

Holyhead railway station: The Ferry Side of the Building

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ron Hann, CC BY-SA 2.0. Stena Line and Irish Ferries operate the Dublin sailings out of the same terminal building. Until September 2014, Stena ran a high-speed catamaran service to Dun Laoghaire, a coastal town twelve kilometres south of Dublin city centre; that route closed when the fast ferry became ...

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Image: Ron Hann | CC BY-SA 2.0