Welsh Town Fights to Keep Train Station
Residents of a Welsh town whose tongue-twisting name has 58 letters Friday urged the government not to sell its train station to foreigners who could ship it overseas like the London Bridge.
State-owned British Rail put the station on the market last week. Local residents fear the 100-year-old station could go the way of the bridge, which an American millionaire bought and moved to Arizona in 1968.
The residents, already bombarded by 250,000 tourists to their Anglesey Island town, which is linked by rail to north Wales, fear further publicity will bring foreign millionaires out of the woodwork, a spokesman for the residents said.
“We don’t know whether publicity’s good or bad,” Alan Mummery said, adding that while it may bring forward unwanted buyers, it also adds to the tourists, who buy $15 shares in a corporation residents hope will save the station.
He said that more than $19,000 had so far been raised. Visitors want to own a share certificate with probably the world’s longest company name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
A resident translated the name as Church of St. Mary’s Pool White Hazel Nearer to the Rapid Whirlpool of (Saint) Tysilio Near the Red Cave.
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