The promoters had cautiously qualified their promises as to the length of the branch by proposing to have its terminus at Llanfyllin for "the present." Some years later, when the Liverpool City Council, seeking fresh water supplies for their growing community, found a rich source in the valley of the Vyrnwy at Llanwddyn and constructed their giant works at what is now Lake Vyrnwy, thoughts began to turn to the prospect of a continuation of the railway in that direction, but it was not a practicable proposition. Up the Llanfyllin branch, however, there came the bulk of the stores, including the huge pipes, and the Portland cement for the bed of the lake. The cement was landed in bags at Aberdovey and from Llanfyllin a team of ninety-five horses was employed to draw it by road to the site of the works. Half were stabled at Llanfyllin and half at the Lake, and those in charge noted a curious fact. The horses living at the Lake went down empty in the morning and came back loaded in the afternoon, and in a few years were all out of condition, whereas those who started in the morning with their heavy load from Llanfyllin and returned empty later in the day were always in excellent fettle. To-day the development of the motor has solved many a transport problem where heavy loads are concerned, but Llanfyllin remains, perhaps, the most convenient approach to Lake Vyrnwy for the increasing number of visitors who go year by year to enjoy its scenic beauties and its piscatorial delights.

Less rapid success attended a similar enterprise a dozen miles away. While the good folks of Llanfyllin were pushing on with their branch, the residents of Llanfair Caereinion were asking themselves why they, too, should not have their railway. Here, also, the initial problem was one of route; but, instead of a somewhat easily disposed-of rivalry on the part of a competitive company, the crux here was the measure of support which could be won from the owner of the Powis estate, through which it would almost inevitably, in some form or another, have to pass. In July 1862 Mr. R. D. Pryce of Cyfronaith, who was much interested in the development of the Llanfair district, asked the Earl of Powis to receive a deputation, but to a proposal that the line should go by the Black Pool dingle his lordship found himself unable to agree. The promoters were disappointed, for it seemed at the time, that no other way was feasible. But a month later another route was discovered, by way of Newton Lane, Berriew and Castle Caereinion and so by Melinyrhyd Gate to Llanfair; or, as an alternative suggestion, from Forden or Montgomery by the "Luggy Brook."

A meeting was held at Llanfair at which Mr. Edwin Hilton explained a scheme which was estimated to cost 60,000 pounds, of which 20,000 pounds should first be raised in ordinary shares, the rest to be made up afterwards of preference shares and debentures. But nothing directly came of it, and it was not until October, 1864, that another proposal was formulated, this time of more ambitious character. This was a variation of the original Shrewsbury and West Midland route, which Llanfyllin had already laughed out of countenance, starting from Welshpool and making its way through Llanfair over (or rather under) the Berwyns to the Great Western system by the Dee. Mr. David Davies, on being consulted, favoured a 2ft. 3in. guage, though he advised that enough land should be taken and bridges built to accommodate an ordinary guage later if found necessary. The minimum speed on the narrow guage was to be fifteen miles an hour, and it was estimated that the average receipts would work out at 5 pounds per mile.

Amongst the leading advocates of this scheme was Mr. Russel Aitken, a well-known civil engineer of Westminster, the home of many Welsh railway projects in those days. He got into correspondence with Lord Powis about it, pointing out that, as a beginning, the line might be made as far as Llanfair, and then the promoters might "wait and see." But Powis Castle was not so easily to be persuaded. The Earl considered a railway from Welshpool below Llanfair Road to Sylvaen Hall "very objectionable" and much preferred the alternative route of branching off the Llanfyllin line at Llansantffaid, via Pont Robert. This Mr. Aitken "could not successfully try to contest" and therefore "gave up the idea of trying for powers to construct the proposed railway," but he still thought a line "from Bala to Welshpool would pay and that it would be a great benefit to the country through which it passes." How far these prognostications may have been justified experience has never given us opportunity to ascertain. A railway through the mighty ramparts of the Berwyns is as remote an accomplishment to-day as it ever was; though, after many years, Llanfair itself was to obtain its narrow guage line, an inch less than Mr. Davies's original design, which, under the name of the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway, with the Earl's successor as its most enthusiastic promoter and chairman, was opened for traffic on April 4th, 1903, to be worked by the Cambrian as an important feeder to its main system.

[Picture: Two famous figures. The late CHIEF INSPECTOR GEORGE THOMAS, of Oswestry, popularly known in his day as one of "The Three Georges," the other two, of course, being Mr. George Lewis, General Manager, and Mr. George Owen, Engineer. The late GUARD CUDWORTH, of Oswestry, for many a long year the highly esteemed custodian of the principal passenger trains on the Cambrian, beloved of all the travelling public]

A shorter branch, some five miles in length, from Abermule winding up the course of the Mule to the village of Kerry, was in course of construction while these other schemes were maturing or languishing. On Monday, March 2nd, 1863, the first engine puffed its way up the long incline (some of it as steep as 1 in 43) to Kerry, drawing one carriage, and on its arrival, after several stoppages on the way to "make steam," was met by a company of local ladies and gentlemen. It had been intended to indulge in some speechmaking, as befitted so auspicious an occasion, but the assembled guests were so absorbed in shaking hands with one another and looking at the engine, panting after its exertions, that the oratory was forgotten, and folks were content to offer their personal congratulations to Mr. Poundley, through whose enthusiasm and activities the branch was mainly built. It had also been arranged to attach to the train a truck of coal from Abermule to distribute amongst the poor, but this was more than the locomotive could accomplish. It went up the next day, and, no doubt, contributed to a wide endorsement of the views of the newspaper scribe, detailed to record these stirring events, that the branch was "everything Kerry can want." Anyhow, with its still rare trains, it is all that Kerry has ever had, and possibly Kerry is still content.

The Kerry branch is also noteworthy for another thing, that it is the first arm of the system which diverges to the east of the main line. So does what was originally the first portion of the trunk, the line from Moat Lane to Llanidloes, later extended by the amalgamation with the Mid-Wales Railway, to Brecon, and so also does another diminutive line, another mile further, which, though not part of the Cambrian proper, deserves notice in these pages, if only for the personality of its former manager.

This is the Van line, which ran from Caersws (whose station is built on the site of an old Roman settlement) up to the Van mines, once productive enough of valuable lead ore, but now derelict. Constructed under the Railways Construction Facilities Act, 1864, the line was opened for mineral traffic on August 14th, 1871 and for passenger traffic on December 1st, 1873. It was leased to the Cambrian, but got into Chancery and was closed a few years later. While it ran many made pilgrimage along its short length, less for the purpose of traversing its rather uninteresting course than for a chance of conversing with one of the most notable characters, under whose charge the trains ran. To many Welshmen, indeed, who never travelled on or even heard, except perhaps quite incidentally, of the Van Railway, the name of John Ceiriog Hughes is a household word.

Born at Llanarmon-Dyffryn-Ceiriog, in Denbighshire, on September 25th, 1832, he passed his early years in the romantic vale of the Ceiriog, amidst the glowing memories of Huw Morris of Pont-y-Meibion. Beginning his business career in Manchester, he soon returned to his native land, and, after occupying a position as stationmaster at Llanidloes, was appointed to the management of this little line. The duties were not particularly arduous, and, in any case, "Ceiriog" was apt to take life with a light heart. Whether he sat in his office or in the cosy corner of some favourite rural inn the muse burned brightly within him, and, from his remote retreat among the hills which look down on the infant Severn, he poured out his soul in poetry, which ranks high in Celtic literature. Welsh verse always suffers in translation into the more cumbrous English, but there are many who have known the charm even of an Anglicised version of "Myvanwy Vychan," and when he died, in 1887, he was acclaimed by such an authority as the Rev. H. Elvet Lewis, to be "one of the best lyrical poets of Wales," who had "rendered excellent service to the national melodies of 'Cymru Fu' by writing words congenial to their spirit,—a work which Robert Burns did for Scottish melodies." He was buried in Llanwnog churchyard, where a simple plate marks his resting place, and friends and neighbours who attended the funeral service on the following Sunday did not feel that it was out of place that it should have been based on the text "Know ye not that there is . . . a great man fallen this day." They did know it, humble as his station might be; and more than one of his admirers has since visited the little deserted office where he worked on the Van line and ransacked its drawers and cupboards for hidden gems of poesy he might have left behind him. Alas! nothing more inspiring was ever found there than faded way-bills and torn invoices! But who shall say that there is no romance clinging close around even the humblest, and now the most woe-begone, of all the little offshoots of the Cambrian?



CHAPTER IX. CONSOLIDATION.

"Facility of communication begets 'community of interests,' which is the only treaty that is not a 'scrap of paper.'"—

THE LATE LORD FISHER.

Lord John Russell, it is said, used, in conversation with Queen Victoria, to date all political development from the Revolution of 1688. If those mystic figures signalize the birthday of Whiggery, in the political world, in much the same way we may date the constitution of the Cambrian, as we know it to-day, from the year 1864. In more than one way it was a notable period in Welsh railway annals. The various independent links in the chain were either completed and wholly or partially in working order, or in course of construction. Thanks to the influential efforts of the Earl of Powis, arrangements had been made with the Post Office and the London and North Western Railway Company, through Sir Richard Moon, for the conveyance of mails from Shrewsbury to Borth, the then terminus. Through working arrangements were also in force among the various local companies, and it was obvious that the time had come to face the problems of future policy. These were not altogether of simple solution.

[Picture: A Group of Old Officials. Standing—From left to right—The first figure is unidentified; Mr. Geo. Owen, Engineer; Mr. Henry Cattle, Traffic Manager. Seated—Mr. A. Walker, Locomotive Supt.; Mr. George Lewis, Secretary and General Manager; Mr. H. C. Corfield, Solicitor]

Very early in the year Mr. Abraham Howell was moved, in one of his frequent letters to the Earl of Powis, to warn his lordship that he scented "another crisis coming on in the affairs of the Welsh Railways." Once more there was division of opinion and "parties" were forming. Mr. Piercy and the majority of the directors were for extending "the Welsh system so as to make it independent of the great companies and set aside existing agreements and obligations." Mr. Howell himself, with Mr. Savin and a minority on the Board, inclined rather to the course of accommodation with circumstances, making the best of the lines and properties of the companies as they stood, avoiding extensions and increasing capital, while cultivating friendly arrangements with neighbouring companies and so avoiding as much as possible Parliamentary and legal conflicts.

After all the tribulations through which these undertakings had passed the more politic and pacific course certainly had its advantages, but one Parliamentary adventure could not easily be avoided. Whether the policy was to be one of splendid isolation or of neighbourly friendship, the moment was obviously ripe for some measure of internal consolidation, and powers were sought for this purpose. The Bill had to pass through the now familiar ordeal of battle, both in the Committee of the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, when many of the old arguments and some new ones were skilfully marshalled on behalf of the Great Western Railway Company and rolled on the tongue of eminent and eloquent counsel. Even the little Bishop's Castle undertaking threw in its lot with the opposition, finding a powerful protagonist in Mr. Whalley. But the Cambrian had stout friends to put in the witness-box. Earl Vane proved a tough nut to crack in cross-examination. So did the Earl of Powis, still apparently tinged with a North Western bias. With the result that after much forensic oratory, closing appropriately on a reminder of "the troubles and difficulties the companies had gone through," and a well deserved "tribute to the energy and talent of their solicitor, Mr. Abraham Howell," the Amalgamation Bill, excluding for the time being the Welsh Coast line, was passed into law in July, 1864.

It set up a joint board, limited to a minimum of six and a maximum of twelve, the first directors chosen being those who had similarly served the several independent companies, some of whom, of course, had acted on more than one of these concerns. The following year, some previous difficulties being removed, the Welsh Coast Railway was brought into the combine, and the Cambrian then assumed the organic shape in which it remained until the further amalgamation with the Mid-Wales Railway in 1904.

Financially, however, the directors still swam in troubled waters. Creditors became impatient and began to press their claims. More than one suit was brought against the Company involving long and expensive proceedings in the Court of Chancery, and very early in 1868 it was found necessary to convene, at Oswestry, a meeting of the "mortgagees, holders of certificates of indebtedness and other creditors, and of the preference and ordinary proprietors for the consideration of the best means of dealing with the conflicting and other claims and interests of the company's creditors and proprietors and of passing such resolutions in regard thereto, or any of them, as might at such meeting be deemed expedient." To obtain some means of getting out of the financial morass in which the undertaking was floundering was "expedient" indeed, and it is hardly surprising to find that, in view of the many conflicts of interest, the assembly is recorded to have been both "large and influential." Mr. Bancroft presided in the absence of Earl Vane, chairman of the Company, and he was supported by the directors and officials who had done much to bring the Cambrian into existence and were now struggling to put it on its feet. The scheme which was laid before the meeting was long and complicated. More than one meeting was required to thrash matters out, but in the end a readjustment was arrived at, and a new scheme was adopted for constituting the board. From July 1st, 1868, until December 31st, 1878, it consisted of ten directors, four of whom were elected by the Coast Section and four by the Inland Section, the other two seats being in the nomination of Earl Vane and the Earl of Powis. The revenue from the whole undertakings went into a common fund, and, after deducting working expenses, the surplus was divided between the Coast and Inland Sections in certain proportions, to be determined by arbitrators and an umpire. Admirable as this arrangement might be in theory, in practice we know what generally happens when

"United, yet divided, twain at once Sit two Kings of Brentford on one throne,"

and it is hardly astonishing that this form of dual authority should have led to a good deal of squabbling between the rival "monarchs." It proved, indeed, a cumbrous contrivance, and, when the period for its operation terminated, with the close of 1878, the constitution of the board was allowed to revert to the limits laid down under the Act of 1864, without any provision for sectional directors at all. During these intervening years, indeed, questions of finance and of the upkeep of the lines were still for ever cropping up, and not always as readily disposed of. It is a long and dreary story of the inevitable struggles with ways and means which so often marks the life of pioneer undertakings. For years these Chancery suits hung like chains about the company's neck, and even into the eighties the directors were never free from sudden embarrassments and never knew from what quarter they might proceed.

One such difficulty, indeed, ultimately proved a blessing in disguise. In 1884, at the instance of the Company's bankers, the line was placed in the hands of a Receiver, Mr. John Conacher, fortunately, being chosen for this office. The line was ripe for a great and final effort to place the undertaking on a firmer footing, and, together with the late Mr. A. C. Humphreys-Owen, Mr. Conacher drew up a scheme of arrangement between the Company and its creditors under which about seventy different stocks were consolidated into ten; and it was their patient and skilful work in thus formulating what became known as the scheme of 1885, that laid the foundation of the Company's improved financial position of which the proprietors and the public have reaped the benefit in subsequent years.

Meantime, however, other matters not directly bearing on finance, engaged the attention of the directors. Amongst these was the question of the works, which it was found necessary to erect, since the Company was working its own line. In July 1864, the inhabitants of Welshpool, conscious of the prominent part which the town had played in the inauguration of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway, presented a memorial to the board in which they urged its central position on the system and the recent completion of the waterworks as strong arguments for favourable consideration of the borough's claims to such an advantage. Nor was it without an eye to future development that Welshpool station was built in a manner capable of allowing its upper stories to be used as the Company's offices. Here, for the brief space, the offices were, but in both these cases ambitious Poolonians were doomed to disappointment.

[Picture: The late MR. A. C. HUMPHREYS-OWEN, M.P. Chairman, 1900-1905]

The official headquarters of the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway Company were destined for some time to remain at Machynlleth, where Mr. David Howell, its secretary, practised as a solicitor; but in January 1862 the staff of the Oswestry and Newtown had removed from Welshpool, and, together with those of the Llanidloes and Newtown, the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch, the Buckley and the Wrexham Mold and Connah's Quay, jointly occupied two rooms on the second floor of No. 9a, Cannon Row, Westminster, Mr. George Lewis being secretary of all five companies. On the floor below the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Company cohabited with some dozen slate and stone companies, while Mr. Benjamin Piercy sat in state hard by in Great George Street, and Mr. Thomas Savin weaved his ambitious schemes around the corner, at No. 7, Delahay Street, with Mr. James Fraser (father of the auditor of the Cambrian in recent years) acting, under power of attorney, as his manager. This proved quite a convenient arrangement so long as Parliamentary Committee work absorbed much of the time of these officials, and here all the companies held their board meetings, generally on the same day.

There were stirring times without, and it is scarcely strange if Cannon Row did not live up to the reputation of its suggestive name. Rows, indeed, were frequent and occasionally threatened to reverberate beyond the walls of the official sanctum. There is an old and honoured Cambrian official, then a young clerk sitting at his desk in the office above the board room, who remembers the occasion when an extraordinary scene was enacted on that dusty little stage. From a scuffle of some sort in the board room Mr. Gartside, a Director of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway Company, beat a hasty retreat up the stairs to the clerk's room, closely pursued by Mr. Whalley. Mr. Gartside being rather portly, was much out of breath, and suddenly pausing and turning round to recover himself on gaining the hearthrug he received Mr. Whalley's fist full in the stomach, which completed his exhaustion. Recovering his breath and as much of his dignity as the circumstances would permit, the disabled Director appealing dramatically to the astonished clerks, exclaimed "Gentlemen, I call on you to witness that the hon. Member for Peterboro' has struck me." But the clerks unable to grapple with so unaccustomed a situation, beat a hasty retreat, and nothing more was heard of what was presumably a more or less accidental "assault."

From Great George Street, the offices were subsequently moved to No. 3, Westminster Chambers, and soon after Mr. Savin's failure, in 1866, when the directors took over the working of the line from the unfortunate lessee, after a short trial of another London office, the Secretary and his staff, in August of that year, packed up pens, ink, paper and documents and settled themselves in Oswestry, where they have since remained. In Oswestry, too, on a site under the Shelf Bank, close to where the first sod on the Ellesmere and Oswestry line was cut, the works were erected and have continued to be maintained.

[Picture: Oswestry station and Company's Head Offices. Reproduced from the "Great Western Magazine."]

On a subsequent occasion, however, they were the ostensible cause of one of those sudden storms which, as we have said, from time to time assailed the board-room or even periodical assemblies of the proprietors. On this occasion it was, indeed, a bolt from the blue. A few days before the date fixed for the half yearly meeting, at Crewe, in February 1879, there had been placed in the hands of the shareholders a pamphlet bearing the innocent title "Cambrian Railways Workshops." But, when they read it, the recipients discovered that, whatever the reason for the choice of such a heading, the sermon was founded on a much wider text. It traversed the whole policy of the Board, the constitution of the Company and the management of its property, and it was written in highly censorious terms. That, in itself, might have been of comparatively little moment, for the directors were not without their critics—no directors of public companies ever are. But the author, who did not withhold his name, was Mr. David Davies, constructor of much of the line and now one of the most influential directors. Here, apparently, was a matter for serious concern, and the seriousness was not diminished when to the pamphlet itself was added a speech, at the shareholders' meeting, in which Mr. Davies did not scruple to suggest that the line was being expensively worked, that the rolling stock had not been adequately maintained, that the road was defective and that, some of the stock being worthless, the whole undertaking was in a false position. It was what Earl Vane (now become Marquess of Londonderry), who presided, called "a stab in the dark." The stab in the open with which Mr. Davies followed it up was certainly not less sensational. He declared that "the line at the moment was not safe, and he should not be at all surprised to see the rails sprinkled with human blood before they were very much older." He alleged that a fellow director (Mr. S. H. Hadley) had expressed a wish to see the Oswestry shops burnt down and new shops erected at Aberystwyth instead. The balance-sheet was "an insult." He washed his hands of the whole affair and demanded a Committee of Inquiry. A hub-bub ensued, amidst which it was not impertinently pointed out that Mr. Davies had himself laid much of the road which he now condemned, and, backed by a letter from Mr. George Owen, the engineer, it was shown that his strictures on its existing condition were unsubstantiated by facts. But Mr. Davies stuck to his guns, and before what was well described in the local Press as "a stormy meeting" terminated, he had left the room and his seat on the Board. It was a matter of doubt, for some moments, whether the noble Chairman would not go too, but, happily, he discovered enough signs of confidence among the proprietors present to encourage him to continue his thankless task.

It was a tremendous tempest while it lasted, but it was soon over. At the next half-yearly meeting, in the following August, the directors were able to report that, instead of spilt blood, the summer had brought a considerably increased weight of tourist traffic, hearty congratulations were showered on Mr. George Lewis, the Secretary, on his efficient administration of the line, and Capt. R. D. Pryce, presiding, in the absence of the Marquess, concluded the proceedings on a happy note of assurance that directors and shareholders were "of one mind," and full of sanguine expectations as to the future of their undertaking. The throes of consolidation are sometimes not less severe than those of birth itself, but they can be as successfully survived.



CHAPTER X. INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.

"Railway travelling is safer than walking, riding, driving, than going up and down stairs . . . and even safer than eating, because it is a fact that more people choke themselves in England than are killed on all the railways of the United Kingdom."—THE LATE SIR EDWARD WATKIN.

Looking back on considerably more than half a century of history it is no small tribute to human care and human ingenuity that serious accidents on the Cambrian Railways have been relatively rare. This is all the more remarkable because all but some twelve miles of its total length, and up to a few years ago, not even as much as that, has had to be worked on a single line, and with the rapidly increasing tourist traffic of recent times, this has placed a strain on both the human and the metallic machine which may easily try the strongest nerves and the most powerful appliances. Obviously it is due to the special care taken in management, and observed, with few if tragic exceptions, by those directly responsible for the working of the trains.

Early in their inception, elaborate regulations were drawn up by the organisers of the original local undertakings, of which a copy, issued by the Oswestry and Newtown Company, as adopted "at a meeting of the Board of Directors, held on Saturday, the 25th February, 1860," and preserved among the papers of the late Mr. David Howell of Machynlleth, gives some interesting indication. It is bound in vellum, fitted with a clasp, and adorned within with a series of woodcuts, descriptive of the old-day signalman, clad in tall hat, tail coat and white trousers, explanatory of the hand signal code, with flags, which preceded the more general use of the modern signals, controlled from a signal box. Following the precept, made familiar by the nursery rhymes of our childhood, it informs us that

"RED is a signal of DANGER, and to STOP.

GREEN is a signal of CAUTION, and to GO SLOWLY.

WHITE is a Signal of ALL RIGHT, and to GO ON.

As an additional precaution, should no flag be handy, it warns drivers that "anything moved violently up and down or a man holding both hands up is a sign of danger."

Some of these early regulations were extremely primitive. For instance, long before the scientific system of the block telegraph and the tablet were thought out, it was deemed sufficient to ordain that "On a Train or Engine stopping at or passing an intermediate station or Junction, a STOP Signal must be exhibited for FIVE minutes, after which a CAUTION Signal must be exhibited for FIVE minutes more." After that, apparently, any train might proceed—and take its risk of the one in front having reached the next signalling point! At level crossings at any distance from the signalman, the gate-keeper was advised to "ring a small hand-bell, or use a whistle to call the attention of the signalman, who must then put up his 'Danger' signals."

[Picture: An Early Cambrian Passenger Engine. Original Form (top), As Re-built (bottom)]

The guard of the first passenger train from Oswestry was instructed to "set his timepiece by the Platform Clock, and give the Clerk at every station the time, so that he may regulate the clock at his station by it," and similar arrangements operated up the branch lines. Porters were told that on the arrival of a train they were to "walk the length of the platform and call out, in a clear and audible voice, the name of the station opposite the window of each carriage; and at Junctions the doors of every carriage must be opened, and the various changes announced to all passengers"—a regulation which, if still on the rule-book, is, like that against receiving tips, nowadays more often honoured in the breach than in the observance. It was even felt obligatory to include a regulation as to what should be done if a train should arrive before its advertised time, though it must appear a little superfluous to those who remember the ways of the Cambrian in those happy days, when a captious correspondent could write to the local Press to aver that, after seeing his father off at Welshpool station, he was able to ride on horseback to Oswestry and meet him on his arrival there! It was certainly a remarkable feat—though, perhaps, not so remarkable either—for, as "an official" of the Company was moved to explain in a subsequent issue, the old gentleman must have travelled by a goods train, to which passenger coaches were attached "for the convenience of the public," and it "often did not leave Welshpool until an hour after the advertised time."

Those "mixed trains" survived until some thirty years ago, when an unregenerate Board of Trade regulation prohibited them, and the wonderful jolts and jars which the public experienced for their "convenience" and the benefit of their liver, if not their nerves, became a thing of the past. But, as an old driver remarked to the writer not long ago,—"It was very comfortable working in those days," and no doubt, for the traffic staff, it was.

We may smile to-day at some of these old ordinances and habits, but traffic then was not as congested as it is on an August day now, when thousands of tourists are being carried in heavily ladened trains to the coast of Cardigan Bay. The rolling stock at that time was as light as the signals were haphazard. We have read of references, in these early days, to "powerful" engines; but they were mere pigmies to the modern locomotive, and some of those pioneer machines which were the pride of the dale sixty years ago have been relegated long since to the humble duty of the shunting yard, or rebuilt altogether.

[Picture: An Early Cambrian Tank Engine. Original Form (top), As Re-built (bottom)]

An old engineman, writing some little time since in the "Cambrian News," gives an interesting retrospect of the "comforts" of railway travel on the Cambrian in those early days. "The original passenger rolling stock on service on the line when opened," he says, "was of a small four-wheeled type, similar in construction to the coaches on other company's lines; about 25 feet long over all, 13 feet wheel base, or half the length and a third the weight of the bogie stock of the present day. The coaches were built by contract, the work being divided between two well-known firms of builders,—the Ashbury Co., Manchester, and the Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, Birmingham. The Ashbury stock was slightly larger with more head room than the Metropolitan. The coaches were built of the very best material, the lower part of body being painted a dark brown, the upper part, from the door handles to roof, a cream colour. {114} Each coach weighed about 8 tons. The 'third class' coaches were made up of five compartments or semi-compartments. Cross seats, back to back sittings for five aside—accommodation for fifty passengers—bare boards for the seats, straight up backs, open from end to end. Our forefathers evidently believed, when constructing rolling stock, in fresh air in abundance instead of the closed up compartment of late years. The thirds were lighted at dusk with two glass globe oil lamps fixed in the roof, one at each end of the coach. Firsts and seconds were provided with a lamp for each compartment. The only other difference between the seconds and thirds was that the seats of the seconds were partly covered with black oilcloth. The latter carriage proved unremunerative, the public hardly ever patronising seconds. Therefore they were abolished. In addition to the ordinary screw coupling, coaches in those days were provided with side chains as security in case of breaking loose on the journey. Side chains, however, were abolished on the advent of the continuous brake. The buffers were provided with wooden block facings with a view of silencing and to prevent friction when travelling round curves—not at all a bad idea either. Wheels in those days were constructed entirely of iron with straight axles and spokes, not wooden blocked as at present to deaden noise. Owing to the lightness of the stock, when travelling at a fair rate of speed, oscillation occurred and passengers had to sit firm and fast, which everyone in those days seemed to enjoy."

Anyhow, there was plenty of fun to be got out of the experience. "The doors of the old coaches were narrow, and many a tussle to get inside occurred. One lady in particular who was very stout and a regular passenger on a certain train, always had to be assisted both in and out—the stationmaster pulling and the guard pushing, while the fireman was enjoying the joke. One morning, when the train was a few minutes late, the guard came running up to the front with his 'Hurry up, Missis,' when the old dame, with her two baskets, an umbrella, similar in size to a modern camping tent, and a crinoline fashionable in mid-Victorian days, got firmly wedged in the door way, whereupon some wag suggested that, to expedite departure, a break-down gang and crane should be sent for and the lady hoisted into an open cattle waggon."



II.

But even with all the care which the management enjoined from the first, accidents were, perhaps, not altogether unavoidable. Sometimes the errant "human factor" showed itself in tragic fashion even in those distant days. By a melancholy coincidence, the first serious mishap occurred close to Abermule, a name since associated in the public memory with the last and the worst catastrophe in Cambrian annals.

It was on a November morning in 1861 that a goods train leaving Newtown for Welshpool, called at Abermule, where they picked up three wagons and some water. But, unfortunately, there was time—or they thought there was time—for the driver, fireman, and guard to adjourn to the adjacent inn, where they took up something rather stronger than the engine's refreshment. Time fled, as it is apt to do in such circumstances, and when the staff rejoined the train, an effort appears to have been made to gain lost minutes, with the result that the train ran off the line, and driver, known to his comrades as "Hell-fire Jack," and fireman were killed. An inquest was held before Dr. Slyman, coroner, one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the Montgomeryshire lines, and the jury solemnly found that "the accident was the result of furious driving," but they exonerated from blame everyone but "the unfortunate driver."

[Picture: An Early Cambrian Coach with its Makers. In Coach: Edward Morgan (3rd from right), Job Thomas, E. Shone. Back Row (left to right): 1, (Unidentified); 2, John Thomas; 3, E. Windsor; 4, R. Williams: 5, W. Parry; 6, J. Richards (foreman); 7, S. Holland; 8, Rd. Davies; 9, Edward Lewis (living); 10, J. Powell; 11, Lazarus Jones; 12, E. Price. Front Row (left to right): 1 (Unidentified); 2, J. Astley; 3 and 4, Boys; 5, Joe Ward; 6, Wm. Jones; 7, T. Morgan; 8, "Fat Charlie"; 9, R. Morgan; 10, John Sanger (brother-in-law of Mr. George Lewis, General Manager); 11, David Davies, Aberystwyth (living)]

But the "human factor" is not the only element of nature with which railway management has to contend. Another, not less serious in its potential consequences, was brought to mind in sinister fashion a few years later, when, during the winter storms of 1868, the Severn and its tributaries rose in flood with such alarming rapidity that the driver of an early morning goods train from Machynlleth to Newtown found, as he ran down the long decline from Talerddig past Carno, that the water was washing over the footplate of the engine, and nearly put out the fire. He naturally bethought him of the wooden bridge over the Severn at Caersws, but, after, careful examination, it was safely crossed. On the return journey, however, the bridge was being carefully approached once more, when, in the dim dawn of a February morning, the engine suddenly toppled-over the embankment abutting on the structure. The floods had washed away the earthworks, though the beams of the bridge itself held fast, and driver and fireman were killed. Word was sent to Oswestry and Aberystwyth, and in the first passenger train from the latter place Capt. Pryce, one of the directors, and Mr. Elias, the traffic manager, were travelling to the scene of the disaster, when it was discovered that another bridge, near Pontdolgoch, was giving way under pressure of the torrent, and the train, crowded with passengers, was only held up just in time to avert what could not have failed to prove a catastrophe far more tragic in extent.

Wild rumours quickly spread concerning the cause and nature of the actual mishap, it being freely stated by sensation-mongers that the Severn bridge had collapsed; but Mr. David Davies, who had been its builder and was now a director of the Company, was able to show that, despite the exceptional strain on the construction, the bridge had resisted the force of the flood and was as firm as ever. Wooden bridges, however, have now had their day, and in recent years have, in all important cases, under the enterprising supervision of Mr. G. C. McDonald, the Company's engineer and locomotive superintendent, been replaced with iron girders, to the undisguised regret of some old-fashioned believers in the efficacy of British oak!

This section of the line, indeed, flanked not only by the rivers liable to flood, but curving its way up steep gradients, over high embankments and through deep cuttings, is necessarily more subject to mishaps than a level road, and it is hardly astonishing that it has been the scene of more than one awkward circumstance. Among them is the story, still told more or less sotto voce, of how, close to this spot, the driver of an express goods train, long ago, might have killed the then Chairman of the Company! The night was wet, and the driver, accustomed to a straight run down the bank to Moat Lane, was astonished to find the signals against him at Carno. He applied the brakes, but it was no easy matter suddenly to curb the speed of a heavy train, and he floundered on, right into a "special" toiling up the hill bearing Earl Vane home to Machynlleth. {118} Happily for everyone concerned, no great damage was done; Board of Trade officials were less inquisitive in those days, and it seems to have been easier then than it is now to "keep things out of the newspapers"!

Less easy to hide was the huge landslide, many years later, of a portion of Talerddig cutting, though on this occasion no accident resulted to any train, and the worst fate that befel the passengers was that, during the considerable time occupied in clearing the line—it was at the height of the tourist season, too—they and their baggage had to be conveyed by road for a mile or two, an arduous task accomplished by the Company's officials without a single mishap.

Such happenings in such a character of country are practically inevitable, but it was not until the Cambrian had been in existence, as a combined organisation, for nearly twenty years, that its story was interrupted, through such a cause, by what was truly described as "the most alarming accident which had ever occurred on the system." In point of death-roll it was not more melancholy than that at Caersws, but its scene and its dramatic nature provided a new feature which intimately touched the public imagination. For it was the first serious disaster in the annals of these undertakings to a passenger train, and, though not one of them was even injured, the hair-breadth escape of several was thrilling enough.

On New Year's Day, 1883, the evening train from Machynlleth for the coast line, drawn by the "Pegasus," driven by William Davies, whose fireman bore a similar name, on reaching the Barmouth end of the Friog decline, built on the shelf of the rock overlooking the sea, struck a mass of several tons of soil, which had suddenly fallen from the steep embankment, together with a portion of retaining wall. The engine and tender appear to have passed the obstruction and then were hurled to the rocks below. Most fortunately the couplings between the tender and the coaches broke, and though the first carriage overturned, and lay perilously poised over the ledge, it did not fall. The next coach also overturned, but in safer position, and probably held up the first.

The remaining coach, which contained most of the passengers, and the van remained on the rails. Amongst those in the train was Captain Pryce, once more fortunate in his deliverance from death, and he and others immediately did what was possible to release the rest from danger. In the overhanging carriage was one old lady, Mrs. Lloyd, of Welshpool, a well-known character at Towyn, where she carried on a successful business in merchandise, and, save for severe and very natural fright, she was got out without sustaining further harm.

The news of the accident soon spread abroad, and reached Dolgelley, where a great Eisteddfod was being held. From this assembly Dr. Hugh Jones and Dr. Edward Jones, well-known medical men over the countryside, with others, hurried to the scene. But the driver and fireman were beyond the range of their skill. With bashed heads they lay, the former in the tender and latter beside the "Pegasus," on the huge rocks that flank the shore. Searching inquiry was made into the cause of the accident, and though evidence was forthcoming that the utmost care was taken to watch that section of the line, and Mr. George Owen, the engineer, and Mr. Liller, the traffic manager, were able to show that all the recommendations and regulations of the Board of Trade officials had been complied with in protecting this awkward cutting, the jury considered the place unsafe and hoped the Railway Company would "do something to prevent occurrence of a similar accident."

Such occurrences, alas! are not entirely within the compass of human power to control, but, as a matter of fact, no such "similar accident" has during its history ever happened at Friog or anywhere else on the Cambrian system. It was, indeed, not for more than fourteen years that serious catastrophe attended the working of the railway, and then the cause seems to have been as uncontrollable as ever. Late one Friday evening in June, 1897, a Sunday School excursion train from Royton in Lancashire, drawn by two engines, was returning from Barmouth, and, close to Welshampton station, only a few miles short of quitting the Cambrian at Whitchurch, left the rails, overturning several coaches and telescoping others. The circumstances were the more pathetic by reason of the fact that most of the passengers were children, homeward bound, after a joyous day by the sea. Nine were killed outright, two died later in hospital, and many others were more or less seriously injured. Dr. R. de la Poer Beresford of Oswestry, medical officer to the Cambrian Railway Co., and many other professional and lay helpers, rendered gallant service, and the railway ambulance corps were a valuable adjunct in the arduous task of dealing with the great work of tending the wounded.

There was some little difficulty in ascertaining the exact cause of the accident, but the Coroner's jury were satisfied that there was "no negligence on the part of any of the officials," and were of opinion that the disaster would not have happened but for a Lancashire and Yorkshire four-wheeled brake van in the front of the train, which, it was stated, had been "running rough." Searchers after portents were quick to recal that in his famous "Almanack," exactly opposite the actual date of the disaster, "Old Moore" had stated that he was "afraid he must foretell a terrible railway collision in the middle of June." It was not a collision, but the gift of prophecy received sufficient endorsement to create no small sensation amongst country folk.

Nor is this part of our story, unfortunately, complete without reference to an actual head-on collision,—an occurrence extremely rare in British railway annals—of even more appalling result in loss of life, than Welshampton. Of that day, early in 1921 when, through a most extraordinary and tragic series of misunderstandings amongst the staff at Abermule station the slow down train was allowed to proceed towards Newtown to meet the up express from Aberystwyth, on the curve a mile away, such vivid memories still linger that little need be recounted here of its harrowing details. The total death-roll, the largest in Cambrian records, was 17, and the victims included one of the most esteemed of the directorate, Lord Herbert Vane-Tempest. Here, at any rate, it was again that mysterious element, "the human factor," rather than any condition of the works or of the rolling stock used which played its melancholy part, and of that it is sufficient to say that the most interesting feature of the protracted official inquiry into the circumstances was the fact that the men concerned were represented at the inquest by the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, M.P., as General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, and his skilful conduct of the case was, apparently, a notable and important influence in determining the final—and reconsidered—verdict of the coroners jury.

[Picture: The late LORD HERBERT VANE-TEMPEST, a Director of the Company (who was fatally injured in the Abermule accident, 1921)]



III.

But these are sorrowful records from which we gladly turn to the lighter side of railway annals. As a link between them we may mention one "accident" which happily unattended with very serious results in itself, was the direct cause of a famous, and at the time, a sensational "incident." In 1887 the down morning mail train ran off the line at Ellesmere and it was held that this was due to delay on the part of the porter in not being at the points in time to work them properly. For at this time the interlocking system, made compulsory under the Act of 1889, had not been installed, and the safety of trains depended on due attention to the pointsman's functions. When, in 1891, a Committee of the House of Commons, of which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was chairman, sat to inquire into the length of railway hours, the Ellesmere mishap was brought up as an example of what occurred when railway servants were expected to work for long stretches, though Mr. John Conacher (who had joined the Company's staff in 1865, become secretary on the retirement of Mr. George Lewis in 1882, and later had succeeded to the managership) was able to produce evidence that it was not so much weariness of the flesh as the fact that the porter was playing cards with a postman waiting with the mails and a stranded passenger waiting for the train which led to his late arrival at the points.

The porter was consequently dismissed, whereupon a memorial praying for his re-instatement was signed, amongst others, by the then Ellesmere stationmaster, the late Mr. John Hood. This appeared to the management so undesirable an attitude for a stationmaster to take in the matter of service discipline that he was temporarily suspended and removed from Ellesmere,—a step which, it was publicly explained, had been contemplated some years before the accident, but not carried out,—to Montgomery. Mr. Hood himself gave evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, alleging that the mishap was due to the rotten condition of the permanent way, and though this created a good deal of sensation and alarm, public assurance was promptly restored when it was pointed out that such a conclusion was entirely rebutted by the report issued by the Board of Trade Inspector as a result of his personal examination of the line immediately after the accident.

Probably little, if anything, more might have been heard of the affair, for the Select Committee had risen for the Parliamentary recess, were it not that the directors, carrying out a detailed examination of their own into the circumstances brought to light again by the inquiry, had laid before them a recommendation by their chief officials on which, rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, they decided to dispense with Mr. Hood's services altogether. Mr. Hood was summoned to Crewe, where he had an interview with the Chairman of the Company, Mr. J. F. Buckley, who was accompanied by two of his colleagues on the Board,—Mr. Bailey-Hawkins and Mr. J. W. Maclure, M.P., and Mr. Conacher, the manager, but to a memorial in favour of the stationmaster's reinstatement, they declined to accede.

The fat was now in the fire, and a very fierce blaze ensued. It lit up the industrial world, then struggling into organic solidarity, with lurid flames, and there were those who had some trading or personal grievance against the company, who not less eagerly threw on fresh fuel of their own. Protest meetings were held at Wrexham and Newtown, at which resolutions were carried condemnatory of "excessive hours," and the late Mr. A. C. Humphreys-Owen, of Glansevern, though he had not been present at the Crewe conclave, was, as a director of the Company and a prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Denbigh Boroughs, singled out for special attack, and as warmly defended by some of his friends.

Mr. Harford, general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of the United Kingdom, with what was, perhaps, an unconscious gift of prophecy, declared that "little railways were a gigantic mistake, and the sooner the better they are taken over by some larger concern, for the workmen and the shareholders." The Labour Press echoed with resounding phrases about "Cambrian tyranny," and "victimisation," and Mr. Hood was acclaimed a martyr of overbearing officialism.

More serious was the attitude and the action of Parliament. The House of Commons, ever quick to resent any appearance of tampering with its "privileges," were sensitive to the suggestion of what seemed to them some interference with a witness before their Select Committee, and not long after the new Session opened, in 1892, Mr. Conacher, who had, meanwhile, left the Cambrian, to the regret of the Board and many others, to assume the larger responsibility of management of the North British Railway Co., was summoned from Edinburgh to appear, with Mr. Buckley and Mr. Bailey-Hawkins, at the Bar of the House to receive the admonition of Mr. Speaker Peel. Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Maclure, being a Member of the House, was at the same time required to stand in his place, where, with bowed head, that burly and genial gentleman, looked very like a schoolboy listening to the stern rebuke of a formidable headmaster!

"Toby M.P.," glancing down from his seat in the Press Gallery on this rare and impressive scene, has described it in the pages of "Punch" in characteristic fashion:—

"Thursday, April 7th.

"The Chairman of Cambrian Railways held a special meeting at Bar. It was attended by Mr. Bailey-Hawkins, and Mr. John Conacher, Manager of the Company . . . The latter, resolved to sell his life dearly, brought in his umbrella, which gave him a quite casual hope-I-don't-intrude appearance as he stood at the Bar. Members, at first disposed to regard the whole matter as a joke, cheered Maclure when he came in at a half-trot; laughed when the Bar pulled out, difficulty arose about making both ends meet . . . Bursts of laughter and buzz of conversation in all parts of the House; general aspect more like appearance at theatre on Boxing Night, when audience waits for curtain to rise on new pantomime. Only the Speaker grave, even solemn; his voice occasionally rising above the merry din with stern cry of 'Order! Order!'

"Hicks-Beach's speech gave new and more serious turn to affairs. Concluded with Motion declaring Directors guilty of Breach of Privilege and sentencing them to admonition. But speech itself clearly made out that Directors were blameless; all the bother lying at door of Railway Servant who had been dismissed. Speech, in short, turned its back on Resolution. This riled the Radicals; not to be soothed even by Mr. G. interposing in favourite character as Grand Old Pacificator. Storm raged all night; division after division taken; finally, long past midnight, Directors again brought up to the Bar, the worn, almost shrivelled, appearance of Conacher's umbrella testifying to the mental suffering undergone during the seven hours that had passed since last they stood there.

"Speaker, with awful mien and in terrible tones, 'admonished' them; and so to bed."

The chief actors in this arresting and peculiar drama have now all past from the stage, almost the last survivor, Mr. Hood himself, dying in 1920, after a long career of public service in the local administration of civic affairs at Ellesmere, and not before, through the gracious good offices of the last General Manager, Mr. Samuel Williamson, full and formal reconciliation had taken place between him and the Company.

[Picture: Four General Managers. The late MR. GEORGE LEWIS, General Manager and Secretary, 1864-1882. The late MR. JOHN CONACHER, General Manager, 1890-1891, Secretary, 1882-1891. MR. ALFRED ASLETT, General Manager and Secretary, 1891-1895. The late MR. C. S. DENNISS, General Manager, 1895-1910, Secretary, 1900-1906]

Rare, indeed, is such an "incident" in the annals of any British Railway. Much rarer, at any rate, than another cause for special managerial anxiety, though not untinged with pride,—the conveyance of a Royal passenger. In this respect the Company, particularly in more recent years, has borne its full share of responsibility and sustained it with adequate cause for self satisfaction. Queen Victoria, though she visited North Wales in the eighties, travelled by another route, and the first Royal train to pass over any part of the Cambrian system was that which bore King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, when Prince and Princess of Wales, on their visit to Machynlleth and Aberystwyth, for the former's installation as Chancellor of the University of Wales in the middle of June, 1896, and on the same occasion another distinguished traveller along the line from Wrexham to Aberystwyth was Mr. Gladstone.

Eight years later, in July 1904, the late King and his Consort journeyed over the Mid-Wales section to Rhayader, to participate in the opening of the Birmingham Water Works, and thence to Welshpool on their way to London. On March 16th, 1910, King George, as Prince of Wales, passed over the Cambrian on his way to Four Crosses, to perform a similar ceremony in connection with the extension of the Liverpool Waterworks at Lake Vyrnwy, and the longest of all monarchical tours over the system was when, in the middle of July, 1911, King George, Queen Mary, and other members of the Royal family proceeded from Carnarvon via Afonwen and the Coast section to Machynlleth as guests at Plas Machynlleth, the following day to Aberystwyth for the foundation stone-laying of the Welsh National Library, and two days later, from Machynlleth to Whitchurch on their way to Scotland.

The last Royal journey was a short one, again over the Mid-Wales section, in July 1920, to enable the King to inaugurate the Welsh National Memorial institution at Talgarth, on which occasion his Majesty was graciously pleased to express high appreciation of the facilities ever afforded by the Board and management whenever he travelled over their system. And on this gratifying note we may appropriately bring our record of Cambrian "incidents" to a close.



CHAPTER XI. THE CAMBRIAN OF TO-DAY.

"To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed, Ah! that's the thrill."—RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.



I.

And so, by devious routes and with many a halt by the way, we come to the Cambrian of to-day. In such a chronicle as this demarcations of time must necessarily appear more or less arbitrary, and if we include under this heading a period which goes back to 1904, it is merely because it is from that year the system has, with only some subsequent minor extensions in mileage, assumed the organic form familiar to us at the present time. For it was then that the policy of amalgamation, entered upon forty years earlier with the consolidation of the various independent companies, was carried forward another important stage, and it is since that date the most significant developments, both in road and rolling stock, made necessary by the ever-increasing demands of modern traffic conditions, have mainly been accomplished.

[Picture: Officers of the Cambrian Railways at the date of Amalgamation, March 25th, 1922. Left to Right: Seated—W. Finchett (Goods Manager), R. Williamson (Accountant), G. C. McDonald (Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent), S. Williamson (Secretary and General Manager), W. K. Minshall (Solicitor), T. S. Goldsworthy (Storekeeper), H. Warwick (Superintendent of the Line). Standing—E. Colclough (Works Manager), J. Williamson (Assistant Engineer), S. G. Vowles (Assistant Secretary), J. Burgess and T. C. Sellars (Assistants to the General Manager)]

As far back as February 1888, the question of merging the Mid-Wales Railway came before the Cambrian directors, under the earnest pressure of Mr. Benjamin Piercy. It was not long before even wider schemes of mutual co-operation among the railways of the Principality were being publicly discussed, under the aegis of what was termed the Welsh Railway Union, for which facilities were sought, by means of a private Bill. A deputation, introduced by Sir George Osborne Morgan (as he afterwards became) and headed by Mr. (later Sir John) Maclure and Sir Theodore Martin, waited on Sir Michael-Hicks Beach, at the Board of Trade. Under this scheme all the lesser Welsh railways were to form a link for through traffic, by way of the projected Dee Bridge and Wrexham to South Wales; but, though nothing materialised at the time, there was something of intelligent anticipation about the appointment, in 1891, of Mr. Conacher, as manager of the Neath and Brecon Railway, one of the parties to the proposal, in addition to his management of the Cambrian. Very soon afterwards, however, Mr. Conacher left for the North British and the joint office was terminated. But another significant new link in the "Welsh Union" chain was forged in 1895, with the construction of the Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway, which, though an independent Company, with the Hon. George T. Kenyon, M.P., as its first chairman and Mr. O. S. Holt as secretary, was from the outset worked by the Cambrian, and thus formed a new direct connection from that Company's system, into the Denbighshire coal-field, and hence, by the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay, later absorbed by the Great Central, into Chester and the Merseyside.

It was, therefore, no startling departure, when in 1904, the Cambrian sought Parliamentary powers, for which Royal Assent was granted on June 24th, to carry out its previous proposal to amalgamate with the Mid-Wales Railway. This line, some 50 miles in length, which had been constructed about the same time as the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway, and formed a junction with that undertaking at the latter town, had all along been in friendly co-operation with the Cambrian, but the change of company also involved a change of carriages at Llanidloes with consequent delay. From July 1st in that year Cambrian trains began to run through, down the beautiful valley of the Upper Wye, connecting with the Midland system at Three Cocks Junction and then from Talyllyn Junction, over the Brecon and Merthyr Company's metals into Brecon, while on the financial side, stocks and shares of the Mid-Wales were converted into stocks and shares of the Cambrian, and the arrears of interest on the Mid-Wales "B" debenture stock were capitalised into Cambrian "B" debenture stock.

The Mid-Wales like the Cambrian, had had a chequered early career. Indeed, it might be said that its embarrassments began at the cutting of the first sod, when Mr. Whalley, who was as ubiquitous as ever where Welsh railways were concerned, permitted himself to make some remarks, in his speech, disparaging Messrs. David Davies and Savin because he disapproved their method of financing the line. Never before or since has such a scene been witnessed on such an occasion! In vain did some of the influential company present attempt to smooth things over. Mr. Whalley was not to be easily downed, and amidst a chorus of "hisses, whistles and pipes" he was heard declaring that he was a gentleman, a member of Parliament and a magistrate, and "it was not his place to argue with men like the contractors."

[Picture: Lieut.-Col. David Davies, M.P. Chairman 1911-1922]

But that was long ago, and by 1904 had been almost forgotten. What was more present in the public mind was the advantage to owners and traders and travellers alike of the formation of the through route (passing near to the gigantic Birmingham Waterworks at Rhayader, and attaining the highest point on the Cambrian system, at Pantydwr, 947 feet above sea-level), along which, every year, in growing numbers, the Cambrian trains have carried hosts of excursionists from the teeming valleys of South Wales to refresh themselves—and spend money—in the health resorts of Cardigan Bay.

In the same year, too, the Tanat Valley Railway, from Oswestry to Llangynog, to which reference has already been made in a previous chapter, {131} the first sod having been cut at Porthywaen by the Countess of Powis on September 12th, 1899, was opened for traffic. Six years later, in 1910, the Mawddwy Railway, running from Cemmes Road to Dinas Mawddwy, which had formerly belonged to an independent Company and later closed, was re-opened under the Light Railways Act, and worked by the Cambrian, while in 1913, power was obtained to carry out yet another amalgamation, which, small in itself, considerably adds to the amenities of tourist traffic in the neighbourhood of Aberystwyth.

This was the absorption of the little Vale of Rheidol Light Railway, which, authorised by Act of August 6th, 1897, had been constructed on a two feet gauge, with power to enlarge up to 4ft. 8.5 inches, from that resort up the valley for just over a dozen miles to the beauteous gorge spanned by the far-famed Devil's Bridge. Though an independent company, its directors were later entirely drawn from the Cambrian Board, with Mr. Alfred Herbert, of Burway, South Croydon, as chairman. The line was opened for goods traffic in August 1902 and for passengers the following December, and since then many thousands of visitors to Aberystwyth have made the delightful journey which its winding course along the hillside affords to lovers of charming scenery. By a subsequent Order, in 1898, an extension of the line was authorised from Aberystwyth to Aberayron, as a separate undertaking with a separate share capital, but this was never attempted, and the Order subsequently expired, in 1904. Under the 1913 amalgamation Scheme the stocks of the Vale of Rheidol Company were converted into Cambrian stock, and the line worked as part of that company's system.

Together with the Welshpool and Llanfair line (already described) {132} which had been opened in 1903, it gave the Cambrian a narrow guage mileage of twenty-one miles, and a total mileage in operation (including the final extension into the commodious new station at Pwllheli in July 1909), of exactly 300 miles, of which twelve only are double line.



II.

But it is not only in length that the Cambrian has developed in recent years. The advance in constructional details and rolling stock is by no means less marked. Following the abolition of second class compartments, in 1912, has come a steady advance in the comfort and convenience of the passenger coaching stock, until to-day, when the latest composite corridor coaches 54 feet long are accepted by other companies for through running. Some of them are regularly worked on through trains, to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London, and, in the tourist season, to other places in the North of England and South Wales. Recently a dining and luncheon car service has been inaugurated in the summer between Paddington and Aberystwyth, and buffet cars are attached to some of the principal trains between Pwllheli and Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury and Whitchurch all the year round.

During the time when Mr. Herbert Jones, who succeeded the late Mr. Wm. Aston, was locomotive superintendent, {133} a large stride forward was taken in this department. The engines now employed in hauling these long and heavily-ladened tourist trains are mighty monsters compared with what appeared "powerful" enough to travellers in the fifties and sixties. Readers turning to the illustrations on another page may see at a glance the difference between "then" and "now" both in the coaching and the locomotive departments. Even the contrast between the engines as originally constructed and as rebuilt is sufficient to impress the interested traveller, but to these, in late years, have been added a powerful class of passenger and goods engines, weighing, with the tender, 75 tons, the passenger class being bogie engines, with four coupled wheels 6ft. diameter, and the goods being the ordinary six wheel coupled type.

Only one change from the old to the new is, perhaps, regretted by some. One of the qualifications of what is popularly termed the "railwayac,"—the man who, though not in the railway service, is keenly interested in the running and working of trains,—is that he should be able to recite, on demand, an accurate catalogue of engine names. In former days, on the Cambrian, as on some other lines, every engine had its name, and there are still middle-aged men in this locality who carry from boyhood affectionate memory of many of these labels,—the "Albion," the "Milford," the "Mountaineer," the "Plasffynnon," the "Maglona" and "Gladys," the "Glansevern," the "Tubal Cain," the "Prince of Wales" and the like, and, later the "Beaconsfield" and the "Hartington."

To some of the directors, however, the habit of christening engines, especially after distinguished persons or the seats of the local gentry, seemed to savour of flunkeyism and the custom was abandoned. Only on the London and North Western and the Great Western, and the London Brighton and South Coast, the writer believes, does it still generally obtain, and even there it is limited to the larger passenger locomotives. Gone, too, is the old decoration of the tenders with the Prince of Wales's plumes, and the only ornamentation of engines and coaches finally left being the Company's crest, the English rose entwined with the Red Dragon of Wales, the original design for which was made and presented to the directors many years ago by the late Mr. W. W. E. Wynne, of Peniarth, Towyn, a noted antiquarian of his day.

[Picture: Mr. Samuel Williamson, General Manager, 1911-1922, and Secretary, 1906-1922]

With the increased weight of engines and coaches necessarily came a strengthening of the road. The rebuilding of the old wooden bridges has already been noted, but some of the girder bridges have been rebuilt also, the last of these, over the Severn at Kilkewydd, near Welshpool, having only been completed last year. This is now a fine structure of four clear spans of more than 60 feet, supported by concrete piers and abutments. Then, too, for the light iron rails laid on a sandy ballast of the old days there have been substituted 80 lb. steel rails laid on broken granite ballast, with a corresponding strengthening of the fastenings, sleepers, etc., and to expedite the running of non-stop trains, mainly during the pressure of the tourist season, special appliances have been erected at wayside stations for the exchange of the "tablet," by means of which the working of a single-line railway is controlled, additional passing places have been constructed, station platforms in several cases considerably lengthened, and one or two new stations opened, bringing the total on the system up to 100.

During the war when Park Hall, Oswestry, was converted first into a vast training camp and later, in part, into a German Prisoners of War camp, a large amount of military transport work fell to the Cambrian, a network of sidings being constructed through the area occupied, and about a quarter of a million of troops were carried over the system to and fro, an additional strain on the human and mechanical resources of the Company which, however, was most efficiently sustained.

Nor does this entirely exhaust the efforts of the Company to serve the district through which its railways pass, to increase the comfort and convenience of the travelling public and to augment and proclaim the amenities of the resorts to which it carries us. To this end, two enterprises, though not directly under the control of the Cambrian, but with which they are linked by close co-operative ties, have materially contributed in recent years. Though Mr. Savin's ambitious schemes for erecting hotels to house the tourists whom the trains might bring ended in financial disaster, the idea was an excellent one; and, when revived, some years ago on a more limited scale and under more propitious conditions, it successfully matured in the formation of the Aberystwyth Queen's Hotel Company, of which a prominent Cambrian director, Mr. Alfred Herbert, is chairman, and some other members of the Board, as well as the General Manager, Mr. S. Williamson, are directors, with the Assistant Secretary of the Cambrian, Mr. S. G. Vowles, serving as Secretary. Not the least advantage of this sort of quasi-partnership is the facility which it has enabled the Cambrian to offer to the public in the shape of combined rail and hotel tickets from the principal inland stations on the system, entitling the visitor to travel to and fro and enjoy the excellent week-end hospitality of the Queen's for an inclusive moderate charge.

It may be truly said, however, that no such allurement is required by those who are already familiar with the charms of Cambria as they unfold themselves in almost illimitable variety all along this western seaboard, stretching from the mouth of the Rheidol right up to the lonely fastnesses of Lleyn. It is, therefore, more particularly to the enlightenment of the uninitiated that the Cardigan Bay Resorts Association, of which the Rev. Gwynoro Davies, Barmouth, is chairman and Mr. H. Warwick, superintendent of the Cambrian line (and now its divisional traffic superintendent under the Great Western control), secretary, working in close and sympathetic co-operation, not only with the Cambrian Company, but with several of the local authorities, has done much, year after year, to make known to the potential English tourist the delights which await him on his arrival in these coastal towns.

At any rate the glorious hills and valleys bordering the Bay, which have inspired more than one Welsh literary itinerant to rhapsody, and furnished Mr. Lloyd George with many a homely and figurative peroration, have proved no mean asset to the proprietors of a railway, whose traffic consists so largely of tourists. To the shareholders of the Cambrian has come the satisfaction of knowing that a concern, which was born under, and for many years continued to struggle for its very existence with, the most embarrassing financial conditions, has gradually acquired a more robust economic constitution.

But it has only been accomplished by long and patient conservation of its slender reserves. Mr. Conacher, it used to be said, during his arduous and energetic management, was "improving the Cambrian in the dark." To his successors has been bequeathed the advantage of bringing that quiet sowing to a fruitful and more apparent harvest. Mr. Conacher was succeeded in the secretariat by another wise and diligent officer, the late Mr. Richard Brayne, whose subsequent retirement to a quiet life in the seclusion of the Shropshire village of Kinnerley, was a matter of regret to all who knew and realised his sterling service to the Company.

On the managerial side of the joint-office which Mr. Conacher vacated, following the comparatively short but bustling reign of Mr. Alfred Aslett (during which much was done to redeem the line from an unlucky reputation for unpunctuality that had become locally proverbial), and that of the late Mr. C. S. Denniss, the Company were fortunate in securing for this responsible office, Mr. Samuel Williamson, trained under Mr. Conacher's tutelage, and thus specially fitted to continue that wise and far-seeing policy which had marked his instructor's methods. Under Mr. Williamson's guiding hand, still further assisted in very valuable fashion by Mr. Conacher, when, for a few years before his death, in 1911, he was called to the chair of the Board, and since then by a Board of which Major David Davies, M.P., the grandson of one of the foremost of the Cambrian's pioneers is chairman, the financial position of the Company has very materially improved.

This is reflected in the terms of amalgamation with the Great Western Company. In 1908 the stockholders of the Company received the sum of 96,556 pounds, but such was the rapid improvement in the Company's position that in 1913 they received 119,005 pounds, that is to say, in the space of five years the amount increased by 23.25 per cent., and it was on this basis that the negotiations with the Great Western Company were carried through in 1922, because for the period from 4th August, 1914, to 15th August, 1921, under the arrangement with the Government, the profits of the Company were fixed on the 1913 basis. Commencing as from 1st January, 1922, the terms of amalgamation give to the proprietors of the Cambrian Company an immediate annual income of 119,307 pounds, and this will be increased as from 1st January, 1929, by a further annual sum of 18,161 pounds, assuming the dividend on the Ordinary Stock of the Great Western Company remains as at present, viz:—7.25% per annum, thus making a total of 137,468 pounds. In addition to this improvement, the Company, on the one hand, during the period from 1909 to 1913, cleared off a heavy debt, and, on the other hand, built up very substantial reserves and, in fact, at the end of 1913, the financial position of the Company was stronger than it had ever been.

[Picture: Two Faithful Servants. The late MR. RICHARD BRAYNE, Secretary 1895-1900. MR. T. S. GOLDSWORTHY, Store-keeper, and Senior Officer at the time of its amalgamation with the Great Western]

It has, however, been an agency beyond the control of directorate or internal management which has shaped the final destiny of the Company. From time to time during the years up to 1914 rumours have circulated concerning the prospective purchase of the Cambrian by one of its great neighbours, either the Great Western, or, more often, the London and North Western, with which it had long maintained a close working alliance. But nothing ever matured in this direction. Cynics were apt to suggest that the explanation might be sought in the parable of the two dogs and the bone, neither of them really wanting it, but each anxious that the other should not get it. Anyhow, it seemed as if the Cambrian would become permanently established as the largest of the independent Welsh Railways, when the Great War plunged, not only this country, but more than half the civilized world into economic chaos. Emerging from its war-time experience of State-control, the Cambrian, like other railways, found itself faced with a hugely-augmented labour bill, to meet which out of potential future revenue, appeared practically impossible.

It was under these embarrassing circumstances that Sir Eric Geddes, as Minister of Transport, devised his grouping scheme, by which all English, Welsh and Scottish railways are amalgamated in groups as a means to more economical working. Together with all the other independent Welsh Companies, the Cambrian was placed in the Western Group, with the Great Western as absorber, and, the proposal meeting with the approval of the proprietors, to whom the transfer offered, on the whole, a decided financial advantage, while the directors were consoled for loss of office with a grant of 7,000 pounds, it was merely left for the Amalgamation Tribunal to give its final assent. This was done early in March and on Lady Day, 1922, almost exactly seventy years after its original inception, the Company, as a separate and independent organisation, officially ceased to be.



III.

Such is the story of the Cambrian. If the reasonable limitations imposed on the prolixity of authorship compel its reduction, in these pages, into more or less broad outline, it is not for lack of plentiful material available to the more meticulous student of its details, out of which, it would be easy to weave a hundred volumes. Lying in the lumber cupboards of solicitors' offices up and down Montgomeryshire, in the strong rooms of Welsh border banks, or amongst the family archives of some of the great country seats of Powysland, there are to be discovered by the diligent searcher masses of old papers, the very existence of which may, perhaps, have been half-forgotten by their present owners, but which waft us back more than half-a-century, and shed varied light on some of the obscurer passages in Welsh railway annals.

Early prospectuses, full of glowing promises of rich dividends the hopes of which have long since become as faded as the now yellow leaves on which they were inscribed. Great tomes of carefully-written-out verbatim notes of Parliamentary Committee evidence. Equally voluminous records of judgments delivered in Chancery by illustrious law-givers long since dead. "Minutes of Orders on Petition," declaring this, that and the other about the safeguarding of certain interests, and the payment of certain dividends—if any funds could be found for the purpose!—and enquiring all sorts of things about "gross receipts" and "monies actually paid into Court, or which shall hereafter be paid into court." Oh, eternal optimism of those early pioneers! Letters from engineers and contractors. Minutes of Board Meetings. Books of accounts of "preliminary expenses," in which "visits to London" seem to bulk so largely and to exhaust so considerable a proportion of the capital subscribed by eager shareholders who believed that some fine day they were to wake to find themselves part owners of a wonderful trunk route yielding illimitable toll upon the wealth of Lancashire and mercantile fleets of the far-reaching seas. They are all there in quaint and often incongruous companionship, and as one turns over their dusty pages and reverently replaces them in their grave of tattered brown paper, one is prompted to reflect, not without a wistful sigh, upon the vanity of human hopes and expectations.

And yet, if the Cambrian never became the great and glorious institution which those pioneers and projectors of its initial component parts intended, and sincerely believed it would, can it be either truly or generously said that their labours were in vain? By their courage and determination and resolute struggle against enormous adversity, they did, at least, bring into being a public service which has opened up remote valleys, formed a link between the great centres of England and of South Wales, and the coast of Cardigan Bay, and kindled a new life for and offered the opportunity of increased prosperity to many a small country town in Shropshire, Montgomeryshire, and Merioneth. They have created means of employment for thousands of workers, and afforded facilities for recreation for millions more who have thus been enabled and encouraged to spend their holidays amidst the health-giving breezes of the mountains and the sea. And above all they, and their successors in the conduct of the undertaking, with its developing lines, have shown us how, despite the early apathy and even jealousy of neighbouring "giant leviathans," a small independent railway company can faithfully serve its day and generation, until, by one of those unforeseen strokes of irony to which corporate as well as individual life is ever subject, it is thrown by eccentric Fate into the arms of the very Company, under whose protective aegis the originators of the Oswestry and Newtown and the Newtown and Machynlleth Railways so ardently, but vainly, desired to place themselves more than half a century ago.

What may be the outcome of this great change it is yet too early to predict; but, whatever it be, for weal or woe, it is a sad thought to many that what they have so long known, and smiled at, and cursed, and loved as "the poor old Cambrian," officially is no more, and "the debt that cancels all others" is finally discharged.



APPENDIX.

LIST OF CHAIRMEN OF THE CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS SINCE THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE VARIOUS INDEPENDENT UNDERTAKINGS IN 1864.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL VANE. (Afterwards the Most Hon. The Marquess of Londonderry) (1864-1884)

CAPTAIN R. D. PRYCE (1884-1886)

MR. JAMES FREDERIC BUCKLEY (1886-1900)

MR. ARTHUR CHARLES HUMPHREYS-OWEN, M.P. (1900-1905)

MR. WILLIAM BAILEY HAWKINS (1905-1909)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1909-1911)

LT.-COL. DAVID DAVIES, M.P. (1911-1922)

LIST OF GENERAL MANAGERS SINCE THE DATE OF CONSOLIDATION.

MR. GEORGE LEWIS (1864-1882)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1890-1891)

MR. ALFRED ASLETT (1891-1895)

MR. C. S. DENNISS (1895-1910)

MR. S. WILLIAMSON (1911-1922)

(Between 1882 and 1890 and again in 1910-11 there was no General Manager, the office being designated traffic manager).

LIST OF SECRETARIES SINCE THE DATE OF CONSOLIDATION.

MR. GEORGE LEWIS (1864-1882)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1882-1891)

MR. ALFRED ASLETT (1891-1895)

MR. R. BRAYNE (l895-1900)

MR. C. S. DENNISS (1900-1906)

MR. S. WILLIAMSON (1906-1922)

LIST OF DIRECTORS AND OFFICIALS AT THE DATE OF AMALGAMATION, 27th MARCH, 1922.

DIRECTORS—

Chairman: LT.-COL. DAVID DAVIES, M.P., Broneirion, Llandinam, Mont.

Deputy Chairman: THOMAS CRAVEN, ESQ., D.L., J.P., 12a, Kensington Palace Gardens, London, W., 8.

LT.-COL. N. W. APPERLEY, M.V.O., Southend, Durham.

CHARLES BRIDGER ORME CLARKE, ESQ., 4, St. Dunstan's Alley, E.C., 3.

SIR JOSEPH DAVIES, K.B.E., M.P., Dinas Powis, Glam.

ALFRED HERBERT, ESQ., Burway, Harewood Road, South Croydon.

COLONEL RT. HON. LORD KENYON, K.C.V.O., Gredington, Whitchurch, Salop.

THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF POWIS, Powis Castle, Welshpool.

OFFICERS—

Secretary and General Manager: MR. S. WILLIAMSON.

Assistant Secretary: MR. S. G. VOWLES.

Accountant: MR. R. WILLIAMSON.

Engineer and Loco Superintendent: MR. G. C. MCDONALD.

Assistant Engineer: MR. J. WILLIAMSON.

Works Manager: MR. E. COLCLOUGH.

Superintendent of the Line: MR. H. WARWICK.

Goods Manager: MR. W. FINCHETT.

Store Keeper: MR. T. GOLDSWORTHY.

Auditors: MESSRS. JAMES FRASER, 31, Copthall Avenue, E.C.; and CHARLES FOX, 11, Old Jewry Chambers, E.C.

Solicitor: MR. W. KENRICK MINSHALL, Oswestry.

Bankers: LLOYD'S BANK LTD., Oswestry.



SOME OLD TIME TABLES.

1860. OSWESTRY AND NEWTOWN RAILWAY:

UP 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 WELSHPOOL 6:35 8:45 11:45 2:25 4:05 7:50 Pool Quay 6:50 9:00 12:00 2:40 4:20 8:05 Four Crosses 7:02 9:12 12:12 2:52 4:30 8:17 Llanymynech 7:10 9:20 12:20 3:00 4:40 8:25 Llynclys 7:15 9:25 12:25 3:05 . . 8:30 OSWESTRY 7:23 9:35 12:35 3:15 4:55 8:40

DOWN 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 OSWESTRY 8:20 10:10 1:20 3:45 6:15 9:30 Llynclys 8:28 10:18 1:28 . . 6:23 9:38 Llanymynech 8:35 10:25 1:35 3:58 6:30 9:45 Four Crosses 8:43 10:33 1:43 4:07 6:38 9:53 Pool Quay 8:55 10:45 1:55 4:18 6:50 10:05 WELSHPOOL 9:10 11:00 2:10 4:33 7:05 10:20

SUNDAY TRAINS—Trains leave Oswestry (calling at the intermediate Stations) for Welshpool at 10 5 a.m., and 8 0 p.m. Also from Welshpool for Oswestry at 9 0 a.m., and 7 0 p.m.

Omnibuses await the arrival of the trains at Oswestry and Welshpool. An Omnibus will work daily (Sundays excepted) from Llanfyllin, through Llanfechain and Llansaintffraid to Llanymynech, in connection with the 9 20 a.m. up train, and the 6-30 p.m., down train: also between Montgomery and Welshpool in connection with the 8 30 a.m. up train, and the 6 15 p.m. Down Train.

1860. LLANIDLOES AND NEWTOWN RAILWAY.

From 1, 2, 3 1, 2, P 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 p.m. Llanidloes a.m. a.m. p.m. STATIONS Llanidloes 6:30 11:00 1:30 7:30 Dolwen 6:38 11:08 1:38 7:38 Llandinam 6:45 11:15 1:45 7:45 Moat Lane 6:53 11:23 1:53 7:53 Newtown 7:05 11:35 2:05 8:05

From 1, 2, P 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 p.m. Newtown a.m. p.m. p.m. STATIONS Newtown 10:00 12:40 4:00 8:55 Moat Lane 10:12 12:52 4:12 9:07 Llandinam 10:20 1:00 4:20 9:15 Dolwen 10:27 1:07 4:27 9:22 Llanidloes 10:35 1:15 4:35 9:30

1864. AFTER THE LINE WAS OPENED TO ABERYSTWYTH.

(Down Trains). DOWN SUNDAYS Whitchurch d. 9:35 1:10 4:25 6:15 7:15 9:10 Fenn's Bank 9:45 4:35 9:20 Bettisfield 9:52 4:42 6:30 9:27 Welshampton 9:57 4:47 6:35 9:32 Ellesmere 10:05 1:36 4:55 6:45 7:40 9:40 Whittington 10:25 1:50 5:10 9:56 OSWESTRY a. 10:30 1:55 5:15 7:00 7:55 10:00 . . . d. 6:40 10:40 2:05 3:30 5:35 7:05 6:15 5:00 Llynclys 6:50 10:50 2:13 3:40 5:50 7:10 6:25 5:10 Pant Mon. W&S W&S 7:20 Llanymynech 6:56 10:56 2:20 3:50 6:00 6:31 5:18 Four Crosses 7:00 10:00 3:55 6:07 7:27 6:35 5:24 Arddleen {146a} Mon. W&S W&S Pool Quay 7:09 10:10 4:05 6:20 6:44 5:35 Buttington 7:15 10:20 2:35 4:10 6:30 7:47 6:50 5:39 WELSHPOOL a. 7:20 10:25 2:40 4:15 6:40 7:52 6:55 5:45 . . . d. 7:30 10:35 2:50 6:55 7:55 7:05 5:50 Forden 7:40 10:45 7:10 7:17 6:02 Montgomery 7:45 10:50 3:05 7:20 8:15 7:25 6:10 Abermule 7:55 12:00 7:30 7:35 6:20 NEWTOWN 6:10 8:08 12:10 3:25 7:40 8:30 7:48 6:33 Scafell 8:14 7:45 6:40 Moat Lane 6:25 8:22 12:25 3:35 7:50 8:03 6:45 Junct. a. . . . d. 6:30 8:25 12:30 3:35 8:40 8:10 . . . Moat 8:25 12:28 3:39 7:52 8:45 8:05 6:48 Lane Junct. . . . 8:29 3:47 8:00 8:51 8:09 7:00 Llandinam . . . Dolwen 8:36 3:55 8:08 9:00 8:18 7:07 . . . 8:45 12:40 8:16 9:10 8:25 7:15 LLANIDLOES Caersws 6:38 12:35 {146b} 8:44 8:14 Pontdolgoch 12:45 {146b} 8:21 Carno 7:15 12:58 8:57 8:35 Llanbrynmair 7:50 1:18 4:15 9:17 8:55 Cemmes Road 8:10 1:35 4:30 9:32 9:10 MACHYNLLETH 8:35 2:00 4:45 9:45 9:25 Glan-Dovey 8:50 2:12 5:00 9:40 Ynys Las 9:15 2:27 5:15 10:00 . . . 9:31 2:34 5:20 Ynys-las (by ferry) . . . 7:25 10:00 3:00 6:00 Aberdovey . . . Towyn 7:37 10:12 3:12 6:10 . . . a. 10:30 3:30 6:30 Llwyngwril Borth arr. 9:25 2:32 5:20 10:10 10:05 Llanfihangel 9:30 2:40 5:30 10:13 Bow Street 9:40 2:47 5:45 10:20 10:20 Aberystwyth 10:00 3:00 5:55 10:30 10:35



1864. AFTER THE LINE WAS OPENED TO ABERYSTWYTH.

(Up Trains). UP a. m. a.m. a.m. a.m. p.m. p.m. p.m. SUNDAYS a.m. p.m. Aberystwyth 8:00 1:00 5:30 5:30 Bow Street 8:15 1:13 5:45 5:45 Llanfihangel 8:22 5:52 5:52 Borth 8:30 1:25 6:00 6:00 . . . 12:15 4:10 4:10 Llwyngwril . . . Towyn 7:45 12:35 4:30 4:30 . . . 7:55 12:45 4:40 4:40 Aberdovey . . . Ynys-las 8:25 1:20 5:10 5:10 (by ferry) a. Ynys-Las 8:35 1:30 6:05 6:05 Glan-Dovey 8:50 6:20 6:20 MACHYNLLETH 9:05 2:00 6:30 6:30 Cemmes Road 9:20 2:15 6:45 6:45 Llanbrynmair 9:35 2:30 7:00 7:00 Carno 9:55 2:50 7:20 7:20 Pontdolgoch 10:07 2:50 Caersws 10:13 7:40 7:40 . . . 6:00 10:00 2:50 5:30 7:20 7:30 8:30 7:20 LLANIDLOES . . . Dolwen 6:06 10:06 5:36 7:26 7:36 7:26 . . . 6:14 10:14 3:02 5:43 7:34 7:44 7:34 Llandinam . . . Moat 6:22 10:20 3:10 5:50 7:42 7:55 7:42 Lane Junc. Moat Lane 10:16 3:10 7:45 7:45 Junc. a. . . . d. 10:26 3:15 6:00 7:50 7:50 Scafell 6:29 6:05 NEWTOWN 6:34 10:35 3:25 6:15 8:00 8:55 8:00 Abermule 6:45 10:45 6:25 8:07 9:00 8:07 Montgomery 6:55 10:55 3:45 6:35 8:17 9:08 8:17 Forden 7:00 {147a} 11:02 6:41 WELSHPOOL a. 7:12 11:15 4:00 6:55 8:35 9:27 8:35 . . . d. 7:16 9:00 11:25 4:10 7:00 8:45 9:35 8:45 Buttington 7:21 9:05 11:31 4:15 7:05 8:51 9:40 8:51 Pool Quay 7:28 9:15 11:38 4:19 7:13 8:57 9:46 8:57 Arddleen W&S 9:20 W&S Mon. Four Crosses 7:40 9:30 11:50 4:29 7:22 9:06 9:55 9:06 Llanymynech 7:46 9:35 12:00 4:35 7:27 9:12 10:01 9:12 Pant W&S 9:40 W&S Mon. Llynclys 7:56 9:50 12:10 1 & 2 4:45 7:38 9:20 10:10 9:20 OSWESTRY a. 8:05 10:00 12:20 p.m. 4:55 {147b} 7:50 9:30 10:20 9:30 . . . d. 8:10 11:20 12:25 2:10 5:15 7:55 Whittington 8:14 11:25 2:14 5:19 8:00 Ellesmere 8:27 11:41 12:40 2:30 5:35 8:15 Welshampton 8:32 11:50 2:38 5:43 8:25 Bettisfield 8:37 11:55 2:42 5:47 8:30 Fenn's Bank 8:46 12:02 2:49 5:54 8:37 Whitchurch 8:54 12:12 1:00 3:00 6:05 8:50

[Picture: Map of the Cambrian Railways]



Index.

Aberayron: Extension 132.

Aberdovey 80, 82, 96.

Abermule 2, 49, 98, 99.

Abermule Accidents 116, 122.

Aberystwyth 1, 2, 9, 11, 62, 63, 65, 78, 79, 91, 117, 122, 127, 131, 132, 133.

Aberystwyth: Excursion Fares to 66.

Aberystwyth: First Train to 79, 80.

Aberystwyth: Royal Train to 127.

Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway 63, 107.

Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast Railway Bill 64.

Aberystwyth Queen's Hotel Co. 135.

Afonwen 127.

Aitken: Mr. Russel 98.

"Albion," The 133.

Arddleen 52.

Ashford: Mr. 52.

Aslett: Mr. Alfred 137.

Aston: Mr. William 133.

Bailey-Hawkins: Mr. 124, 125.

Bala 81, 98.

Bancroft: Mr. 104.

Barlow: Mr. 32, 41.

Barmouth 81, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 119.

Barmouth and Pwllheli Line Opened 89.

Barmouth Bridge 85, 86.