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Railway station that serves the port of Fishguard Harbour, Wales

Fishguard Harbour railway station serves the port of Fishguard Harbour, Wales. It is the terminus of one of the branches of the West Wales Line from Swansea. The area is also now served (since it reopened on 14 May 2012) by Fishguard and Goodwick railway station.

The Great Western Railway took over the North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway by agreement of 12 February 1898. Its intent was to turn Fishguard into a purpose built ocean liner port because it wanted to take trans Atlantic passenger traffic away from Plymouth and Southampton. In preparation of this, the GWR opened its first station, Fishguard & Goodwick railway station, in 1899 when work on the new port began with the construction of Fishguard Harbour's East breakwater. In conjunction with building the East Breakwater, a new 2 mile (3 km) railway would be built to connect to the liner terminal with the West Wales line. The line, which would bypass the steeper gradients and curves on this part of the original line, would have a deep cutting, embankments and two tunnels. However, within two years, the project to build the breakwater and ocean going terminal was abandoned after it became clear silting (which could not be prevented by dredging) would prevent large ocean going ships from ever using the port. The East Breakwater was left unfinished. Although two sections of the new railway to the proposed port terminal were completed before the project ended, they were abandoned and never used. Rail traffic would continue to use the original route to Goodwick. Despite being unable to complete the project as envisaged, the GWR still wanted to create a new port. The North Breakwater was created in deeper water by quarrying stone from the headland at Goodwick. The quarried out area became the new quay and terminus for the West Wales line. On 30 August 1906, Fishguard harbour station was officially opened when the Waterford and Cork ferry services were transferred from to Fishguard Harbour. Three years later, the first Cunard liner to call at Fishguard was the on 30 August 1909. However, passengers had to be transferred ashore to the waiting London train by tender due to the shallowness of the harbour.

The station is not owned by Network Rail but by Stena Line. A large part of the station is contained within the port building where there is seating and toilets. However, there are no railway ticket machines and the station is staffed only by Stena Line personnel, no rail staff are employed there. This means there is no rail ticket office and passengers travelling from Fishguard by train must purchase their tickets in advance by post, at a different station, or on board their train. The majority of passengers using the station are in possession of SailRail tickets issued at Rosslare Europort or another station in Ireland. The station has step free access throughout and the station's owners, Stena Line, permit smoking on the platform. The station also has both long and short stay parking. The minimum connection time from Fishguard Harbour is seven minutes, and when bus replacement services are operating, the buses leave from the car park adjacent to the level crossing. After the ban on smoking in public became law in Wales in April 2007, the station became the only one in the UK where it was still permitted. Stena Line allowed passengers to continue to smoke on the platform because it was deemed too dangerous for them to smoke at the nearest point where it was technically permissible: a level crossing over a busy road. Smoking is banned at all stations operated by Network Rail. This was during the Beeching cuts period. Since that date the only scheduled passenger services have been the boat trains. In recent years these have been one night service and one day service all year round, despite the summer only fast ferry. At one stage the night service was formed of an InterCity 125 train running direct to/from London Paddington. The daytime service was the same, although perhaps for only part of the year. British Rail, and later First Great Western and its predecessor Great Western Trains all operated InterCity 125 services to Fishguard Harbour. In 2000, the night service was still operated by First Great Western (using InterCity 125s) but the daytime train was operated by Wales & West, meaning there were no longer any daytime through services to Paddington. Wales & West's services were transferred to Wales & Borders when Wales & West was split up.

All services were operated by Arriva Trains Wales. The level of service was greatly enhanced from 12 September 2011 when five extra services per day in each direction commenced running to and from Fishguard Harbour Mondays to Saturdays. The five extra services are as follows:

The ferry sailing schedule was significantly revised in May 2017 resulting in changes to the train times. As a result, there are no longer trains during the night and the 01.50 departure is discontinued. From May 2018 it was proposed to extend the 19.30 from Manchester to Carmarthen to Fishguard Harbour, returning at 02.37 to Carmarthen, with an equivalent bus replacement in the early hours of Sunday.

Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, services on the Fishguard branch have been reduced. As of August 2021, there are two daily departures from Mondays to Saturdays one at midday, and one in the late evening. Both services run to Carmarthen, with the midday service continuing to Cardiff Central. On Sundays, there is an increased service of three trains per day. The additional mid afternoon service runs to Swansea.