Part of the Conwy Valley railway line has reopened this morning, Saturday, 11th January, after being closed because of damage caused by bad weather on New Year’s Eve.

The part of the line reopened is between Llandudno and North Llanrwst.

Engineers are working around the clock to repair a damaged bridge between Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed so that the rest of the line between North Llanrwst and Blaenau Ffestiniog can be reopened.

As well as the damaged bridge between Llanrwst and Betws-y-Coed, other bridges, track and level crossings suffered damage in the storm and had to be repaired.

In one place a tree had to be removed, and the ballast was washed away over a 2½-mile section of line between North Llanrwst and Tal-y-Cafn stations.

Multiple repairs had had to be carried out along the length of the line, including installing new ballast at dozens of smaller washout sites, repairing multiple level crossings, and repairing two bridges south of Llanrwst station.

This is the second time in nine months that the line between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog has had to be closed for emergency repairs, as flooding washed away ballast near Dolgarrog station last April which required the installation of 200 tonnes of new ballast.

In 2020, a £2.2m investment was made in the line to protect it from future flooding by placing 16,000 tonnes of rock armour along a 2km section of the line between Tal-y-Cafn and Llanrwst.

“There is a history of weather damage on the Conwy Valley Line, with the line itself being built on a floodplain and exposed to the worst of the elements. Network Rail has, in recent years, repaired the worst-hit areas of the line and made them resilient by installing rock armour – but resilience is not about being resistant. Unfortunately, there will be times where we must close the railway to carry out repairs – however, the extensive work carried out in 2019 and 2020 means the railway is now able to recover quicker than previously when suffering weather-related damage. We apologise for the disruption and thank customers for their patience and understanding while our teams work around the clock to get the line open again.”

Rachel Heath, Network Rail Wales & Borders operations director