Chester and Holyhead Railway

The Chester and Holyhead Railway was an early British railway company authorized in 1844 to speed government dispatches between London and Ireland alongside ordinary passenger and freight traffic. Its construction was made hugely expensive by the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Strait, and the main line opened throughout in 1850 before the London and North Western Railway absorbed the company in 1859. The line's branches helped make Llandudno and North Wales into major holiday destinations reached by rail.