The construction team building the Porthmadog bypass has sealed an agreement with The Ffestiniog Railway which will save hundreds of heavy wagons a week travelling on local roads.

The historic tourist railway has given the go ahead for a temporary crossing to be built across its track at Minffordd, allowing the road construction team to transport about 10,000 m3 of excavated material from the Minffordd section straight onto the bypass site without the need to traverse local roads.

The Welsh Assembly Government has awarded the contract to build the £35 million bypass to a joint venture partnership of Balfour Beatty and Jones Bros (Civil Engineering).

The single carriageway will be 7.3m wide, plus hard shoulder and verges, and is scheduled to take two years to complete, involving three roundabouts, three junctions and eight bridges, including a landmark three-span viaduct over the environmentally-sensitive Glaslyn estuary.

To minimise disruption to the local communities it was decided to build a temporary road along the site for use by haulage wagons transporting stone from the quarry. This would not have been possible without the agreement of the popular tourist railway, as the road would have to cross its track.

Partnership deputy project manager Hefin Davies said: “This is a major benefit to the contract. The Ffestiniog Railway has been helpful and fully supportive. We had an extremely positive meeting with them, a great example of how we can work together with the local community to achieve minimal disruption throughout this important project.”

Ffestiniog Railway General Manager, Paul Lewin, added that the railway was happy to help: “This is a valuable project for the entire region, but there is unanimous agreement that it has to be done sympathetically with as little disruption as possible to local residents. We were more than willing to help achieve this.

“The crossing will be a temporary measure which will only impact on us in a small way, compared to the traffic headaches which could be imposed on the local community without it.”

Representing a comprehensive improvement on the existing A487, the new carriageway will bypass Porthmadog, Tremadog and Minffordd.