Ellesmere Canal from Hurleston to Llangollen was retained as a water feeder for the Shropshire Union Canal main line and for drinking water. In 1955 an agreement with the Mid & South East Cheshire Water Board secured the canal's future. Despite the formal closure, increasing popularity of the canal with pleasure boats led to its acceptance as an important amenity, and the rebranding as the Llangollen Canal. As the canal was never intended to go to Llangollen, this renaming is an ironic twist symbolic of the canal's convoluted development. The Ellesmere Canal south of Frankton Junction (the Llanymynech Branch) nowadays forms part
Llangollen railway station Monday 18 January 1965 but the section between Ruabon and Llangollen Goods Yard remained opened for freight traffic until April 1968. Immediately afterwards the track was removed from the whole line between Ruabon and Barmouth Jn. The Flint and Deeside Railway Preservation Society was founded in 1972, with the aim of preserving one of the region's "axed" railways. Originally the society was interested in preserving the Dyserth to Prestatyn line; however that line was deemed unsuitable because a small amount of freight traffic was still using it. The society refocused its attention on the Llangollen to Corwen section of the