Disused Stations: Mold Station

Station Name: MOLD

Date opened:

14.8.1849

Location:

On the south side of New Street (A5119)

Company on opening:

Mold & Denbigh Junction Railway

Date closed to passengers:

30.4.1962

Date closed completely:

4.5.1964

Company on closing:

British Railways (London Midland Region)

Present state:

Demolished - the site is now occupied by supermarket and access road.

County:

Flintshire

OS Grid Ref:

SJ240640

Date of visit:

21.5.2005

Notes: Mold station was opened on the 14 August 1849 as the terminus station of the Mold Railway Companies double track line from the Chester and Holyhead Railway, at Saltney near Chester, to Mold. Train services were operated between Mold and Chester by the Chester and Holyhead Railway which became part of the London & North western railway in 1859. By August 1862 there were four trains from Mold to Chester and four return workings. The first train left Mold at 08:00 and the last train returned from Chester at 18:15.

On 12 September 1869 the Mold & Denbigh Junction Railway opened a line from Denbigh which made an end on connection to the original Mold Railway Company Line thereby creating a route that would become known as the Chester to Denbigh line. From the outset it was operated by the London and North Western LNWR although the Mold and Denbigh Junction section remained nominally independent until the 'Grouping' of 1923.

Mold station was quite a grand affair. The station had two platforms. The main station building was located on the west side of the line on what after September 1869 had become the Denbigh direction platform. The building was a two storey brick build structure that housed the booking office, staff accommodation and waiting facilities. Canopies were located at the main entrance and on the platform side of the building. Just to the north of the main building a covered footbridge gave access to the Chester direction platform. North of the footbridge on the Denbigh platform there was a single storey brick built toilet block.

On the Chester direction platform a single storey brick built building provided waiting facilities and store rooms. This building was located to the north of the footbridge but it had a long canopy which continued along the platform to its south end. At the rear of the south end of the Chester platform there was a substantial brick built goods shed.

From September 1869 train services operated from Mold to Chester and to Denbigh. In effect the service passed through Mold running between Chester and Denbigh. By 1904 there were seven trains to Chester and seven trains to Denbigh from Mold Station on weekdays and six on Saturdays. There were also shorter workings between Mold and Denbigh. One train in each direction ran on mid week days and two on a Saturday.

On 1 January 1892 the LNWR introduced a train service between Mold and Coed Talon. The service used a 4.5 mile line that the LNWR had opened from a point a little under one mile to the south of Mold Station to Coed Talon for goods trains in 1870. On 2 May 1898 the service was extended to run to Brymbo. Four trains ran out to Brymbo and back each day.

In 1923 Mold Station became part of the London Midland Scottish Railway (LMS). In 1923 Mold had eleven trains to Denbigh, eleven to Chester and four to Brymbo. By May 1934 the service had increased to thirteen trains in each direction on the Chester and Denbigh service and five services out to Brymbo and back. There was also an additional late night train to Denbigh on Saturdays. This was to be the highest level of service that Mold Station would see as during the Second World War there was a big reduction in passenger trains. The Brymbo service was reduced to just two trains each way per day.

On 1 January 1948 Mold Station became part of the nationalised British Railways (London Midland Region). On 27 March 1950 the Brymbo service was discontinued. It had in later years only consisted of two trains per day that ran in the morning and in the late afternoon to serve children who attended Mold Grammar School.

By the late 1950s the train service through Mold was operating as an all stations service between Chester General, Denbigh and Ruthin with some services only operating between Chester and Denbigh. The trains usually only consisted of two coaches. In the Summer of 1960 there were nine trains in each direction on this service with one additional train that ran from Mold to Denbigh and then back again.

By the early 1960s passenger receipts were so low that the withdrawal of passenger services was proposed. On 28 April 1962 the last passenger services operated and Mold station closed with effect from 30 April 1962. The station remained open for goods services until 4 May 1964. After that date trains continued to pass through the station site as a chemical factory that lay to the north of the station was still rail served. Beyond the chemical factory the line was left in situ to serve a government installation at Rhydymwyn. The goods trains in this period were no able to run as far as Saltney as the line from Hope Low Level to Broughton had been closed and lifted. A spur was used which connected the Mold line to the former Great Central Railway (GCR) Bidston to Wrexham line.

Goods trains running between Wrexham and the Chemical factory continued to pass through Mold Station until March 1983. After that date the last remnant of the Chester - Denbigh line was closed and it was lifted during the summer of 1985.The station site survived until the 1990s after which it was developed as a supermarket. Tickets from Michael Stewart, route map drawn by Alan Young

Sources From Chester to Holyhead – The Branch Lines by Bill Rear. Oxford Publishing 2003 ISBN 978-0-860935-69-8

British Railways Past and Present – North Wales Part 2 by Paul Shannon & John Hillmer. 1999 Past & Present Publishing ISBN: 978-1-85895-163-8

To see other stations on the Brymbo - Mold line click on the station name:
Brymbo, Ffrith. Llanfynydd & Coed Talon

To see the other stations on the Chester - Denbigh line click on the station name: Saltney Ferry, Broughton & Bretton, Kinnerton,
Hope & Pen-y-ffordd, Hope Low Level, Padeswood & Buckley, Llong, Rhydymwyn, Star Crossing, Nannerch, Caerwys, Bodfari, & Denbigh

Mold station looking south east in 1949

Mold Station looking south east in the early 1960's
Photo by Dave Nicholas

Mold station looking south-east in the late 1960's.

Looking north-west towards Mold station on 26 February 1973. Although the station had been closed to passenger services for over a decade it retained its original features and track layout.
Photo by Keith Holt from the KDH Flickr photostream