Ruabon Railway Station

Ruabon Railway Station North East Wales on the old GWR Line

Ruabon Railway Station is a combined rail and bus interchange serving Ruabon, Cefn Mawr and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct World Heritage Site corridor in North East Wales. It is the second busiest station in Wrexham in terms of passenger journeys, after the mainline station, Wrexham General. It is on the Shrewsbury to Chester Line, which is part of the former Great Western Railway mainline route from London Paddington to Birkenhead Woodside which lasted until 1967.

The original station building was Italianate in style and was designed by the architect Thomas Penson. It opened on 4 November 1846. However, this was replaced by the current neo-Tudor style stone buildings designed by Henry Robertson in 1860. In 1870 refreshment rooms were added between the platforms then serving Chester and Barmouth.

It was originally a large station, which had an extensive marshalling yard complete turntable and goods depot, and was the terminus of the Ruabon to Barmouth line which ran via Llangollen, Corwen and Dolgellau. This branch line was a victim of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, closing to passengers (Ruabon to Barmouth line) in 1964 and completely four years later (freight). Following further cuts in the national railway service, Ruabon station became an unstaffed halt in 1974. The bay platform that once served the Ruabon to Barmouth line can still be seen at the station and a fenced-off portion of the passenger footbridge leads to the disused platform.

Up until January 2011 the Wrexham, Shropshire and Marylebone Railway provided regular daily services between Wrexham and London via Birmingham. This service ceased due to a continuing loss being made by the company.

This rural station is at the top of Station Road, a few minutes’ walk from the centre of Ruabon. There is also bus/rail link service available for onward journeys to Llangollen, Cefn Mawr & Cefn Viaduct for access to Pontcysyllte Aqueduct World Heritage site. The bus service is frequent, approximately every 15 minutes during the day and full details are shown at the bus stops on digital displays. Tel 01978 266166 for further details

Trains depart from this station for Wrexham, Chester, and Holyhead and for Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Birmingham International Airport and Cardiff with connections for London at Chester and Birmingham. The 0640 train from Ruabon via Chester, Crew and Milton Keynes, arrives in London Euston at 0930. This extremely useful service could be reduced to 2 hours with a direct route to London via Birmingham once again and would present a much more commercially viable option than HS2.

Annual rail Passenger Usage:

 

2004/05                32,414

2005/06                39,854

2006/07                46,623

2007/08                54,369

2008/09                65,500

2009/10                71,346

2010/11                77,014

Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Ruabon from Office of Rail Regulation statistics.

Goods train hauling through Ruabon Station
Northern Belle crossing the Cefn Viaduct en route to Ruabon Station