The station platform is demolished, but the goods shed is extant and converted into a house. Part of a wagon loading-gauge also survives.

Notes: Meliden Station was located on the 2½-mile long Prestatyn to Dyserth Branch line close to the centre of the village from which it took its name. The line had been opened in 1869 by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) to carry lead and haematite from mines in the upper Prestatyn Valley down to the Chester and Holyhead Main line at Prestatyn. Talargoch Mine was close to the station, but this closed in 1883 because of the expense of running its 15 engines. .

Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was demand for a passenger service on the line, with a petition being sent to the LNWR in 1896. The LNWR eventually agreed to this, and a regular passenger service started on Monday 28 August 1905. Prior to this Meliden was a goods station which opened with the line. In 1905 it was upgraded to a passenger station with very basic facilities consisting of nothing more than a low level platform with a timber building on a loop, located on the west (up) side of the line.

To the north of the station, also on the up side, was the existing goods yard, comprising two sidings. One siding ran through the stone-built goods shed. There was also a 1 ton 10 cwt crane. The goods yard did not handle livestock.

From the start passenger train services were operated by a ‘railmotor’ that ran between Prestatyn and Dyserth. Initially there were only two intermediate stopping places, at Meliden and Rhuddlan Road. When the station opened there were eight services in each direction during the summer months which reduced to five during the winter, and no Sunday service, but by the summer of 1906 this had improved to 14 trains a day in each direction.

The service proved to be very popular with local people; in the summer months tourists used the trains to Dyserth to view the Cwm waterfalls and a ruined castle. By 1911 the service frequency had built up to sixteen trains in each direction Monday - Friday (one down train did not call at intermediate stations) and fifteen on Saturday. Due to an increase in passenger numbers after the Great War, the railmotor was replaced with tank locomotives and coaches that could operate in push-and-pull mode.

On the 1 January 1923, Meliden became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). The passenger service had always struggled financially, especially in the winter months. By 1930 there was strong road competition which led to the LMS withdrawing passenger services on 22 September 1930.

The line reverted to being purely a freight route. Meliden station closed to goods services on 1 April 1957, and the sidings and the loop were lifted shortly after. Stone trains continued to pass through the station site regularly until the 7 September 1973.

The goods shed survived closure and in 2017 it received a grant of over £1 million for a restoration project. 

Sources:

• From Chester to Holyhead The Branch Lines by Bill Rear
  
• Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology by Michael Quick (Railway & Canal Historical Society 2009)
• Clinker’s Register of Closed Passenger Stations and Goods Depots by C R Clinker (Pub: Avon Anglia 1978)

Further reading: The Prestatyn and Dyserth branch line by Stephen P. Goodall (Oakwood Press 1986) ISBN-13: 978-0853613138.
Other web site: www.dyserth.com web site for a feature on the Dyserth branch with more photos.
Click here to see a 4 minute film of a DMU railtour to the Dyserth branch in 1968.

Route map drawn by Alan Young, Ticket from Michael Stewart, Bradshaw from Chris Hind

To see other stations on the Dyserth branch line click on the station name:
Chapel Street, Woodland Park, St. Melyd Gold Links, Allt-y-Graig & Dyserth