The Story of the Cambrian: A Biography of a Railway
by C. P. Gasquoine · English · Gutenberg #20074 · 311,912 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Story of the Cambrian: A Biography of a Railway
Author: C. P. Gasquoine
Release date: December 10, 2006 [eBook #20074]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20074
Credits: Transcribed from the 1922 Woodall, Minshall, Thomas & Co. Ltd. edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE CAMBRIAN: A BIOGRAPHY OF A RAILWAY ***
Transcribed from the 1922 Woodall, Minshall, Thomas & Co. Ltd. edition by
David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE STORY OF THE CAMBRIAN
A Biography of a Railway
by
C. P. GASQUOINE
(Editor of the "Border Counties Advertizer.")
[Picture: Cambrian Railways Company stamp]
1922:
Printed and Published by Woodall, Minshall, Thomas & Co. Ltd.
(Incorporating Hughes & Son).
Principality Press, Wrexham, and Caxton Press, Oswestry.
PREFACE.
Credit for the inspiration of this book belongs to my friend, Mr. W. R.
Hall, of Aberystwyth, who, in one of his interesting series of
"Reminiscences" of half a century of Welsh journalism, contributed to the
"Cambrian News," recently expressed his surprise that no one had hitherto
attempted to write the history of the Cambrian Railways. With the
termination of that Company's separate existence, on its amalgamation
with the Great Western Railway under the Government's grouping scheme,
"the hour" for such an effort seems to have struck; and Mr. Hall's
pointed indication of Oswestry as the most appropriate place where the
work could be undertaken, not only by reason of its close connection with
the official headquarters of the Cambrian, but because, in a certain
newspaper office there lay the files containing so many old records of
the railway's birth and early struggles for existence, even the selection
of "the man" appeared so severely circumscribed that to the present
writer it virtually amounted to what, in certain ecclesiastical circles,
is termed "a call."
Responsibility for its acceptance, however, and for the execution of the
task, with its manifold imperfections and shortcomings, rests entirely
with the author, whose only qualification for assuming the role of
biographer of the Cambrian is the deep interest he has always taken in a
subject worthy of a far abler pen. Not even the attempt would have been
possible had it not been for the valuable assistance readily given by
many kind friends directly or indirectly associated with the Cambrian
Railways.
Special thanks are due, and hereby gratefully acknowledged, to Mr. Samuel
Williamson General Manager, not for only much personal trouble taken in
supplying information and looking through proof-sheets, but for placing
no small portion of the time of some members of his clerical staff at the
disposal of the author, who has troubled them on many occasions, but
never without receiving prompt and patient response; to other officials
and employees, past and present, of the Company for information regarding
their several departments, and their personal recollections, including
Mr. T. S. Goldsworthy, the senior officer and sole surviving member of
the "old guard," who played their part in the battles of the
Parliamentary Committee-rooms of long ago, whose reminiscences of the
days of old have proved particularly useful; to the Earl of Powis for
permission to inspect the voluminous papers of the late Earl, whose name
was so intimately associated with the early development of railway
schemes in Montgomeryshire; to the family of the late Mr. David Howell
for similar facilities in regard to his papers; and, for the loan of
photographs or assistance of varied sort to Colonel Apperley, Mr. E. D.
Nicholson, Park Issa, Oswestry, Mr. W. P. Rowlands and Mr. Edmund
Gillart, Machynlleth, Mr. Robert Owen, Broad Street, Welshpool, Mr. J.
Harold Thomas, Garth Derwen, Buttington, the Misses Ward, Whittington,
Miss Mickleburgh, Oswestry, Mr. E. Shone, Oswestry, the Editor of the
"Peterborough Advertiser," the publishers of the "Great Western
Magazine," and others.
The indexing has been compiled by Mr. Kay, Public Librarian, Oswestry, to
whom thanks are due for the efficient discharge of a rather irksome duty.
As to the arrangement of the book itself: in tracing the various stages
of construction, often simultaneous or overlapping in point of time, of
the several separate and formerly independent undertakings into which the
Cambrian system was subsequently consolidated, and still further
augmented by later local amalgamations, it has been found well-nigh
impossible, chronologically, to maintain at once a clear and consecutive
story. Recourse has, therefore, been had to the method of dealing with
each section of the line in separate chapters, and the same plan applies
to some departments of development in later years. But an endeavour has
been made to follow, as comprehensively as such circumstances permit, the
general course of the Railway's growth; and it is in the hope that,
however imperfectly, it may serve to recal seventy years of struggle,
triumph and romance in Welsh railway annals that to Lt.-Col. David
Davies, M.P., its last Chairman, and Mr. Samuel Williamson, its last
General Manager, and his numerous other friends among the officers and
staff of all ranks, the writer begs to dedicate this little story of the
Cambrian, in memory of many happy days spent in travelling, as a
privileged passenger, along its far-reaching lines.
C. P. G.
"_Border Counties Advertizer" Office, Oswestry_, 1922.
[Picture: Directors & Offices on a Farewell Visit to Aberystwyth, May
1922. Reading from left to right:--Mr. W. K. Minshall (Solicitor); Sir
Joseph Davies, M.P.; Mr. Alfred Herbert; Lord Kenyon; Lt.-Col. Apperley;
Mr. G. C. McDonald (Engineer and Loco. Supt.); Mr. S. G. Vowles
(Assistant-Sec.); Mr. C. B. O. Clarke; Mr. H. Warwick (Supt. of Line);
Mr. T. Craven (Deputy Chairman); Lt.-Col. David Davies, M. P. (Chairman);
Mr. T. C. Sellars (General Manager's Assistant); Mr. S. Williamson
(General Manager and Secretary). Photo by H. H. Davies & Son,
Aberystwyth]
CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.
"_No Engineer could succeed without having men about him as highly
gifted as himself_."--ROBERT STEPHENSON.
I.
When what eventually became the Cambrian Railways was born it was a very
tiny baby. Compared with its ultimate frame, it possessed neither arms
nor legs, nor even head, and consisted merely of heart and a small part
of its trunk. It began "in the air" at Newtown and ended, if possible,
in still more ethereal poise, at Llanidloes. Physical junction with
existing lines there was none, and the engines--four in number--which
drew the coaches that composed those early trains had to be brought by
road, from Oswestry, in specially constructed wagons, not without
difficulties and adventures, and placed on the metals at the railhead, to
live their life and perform their duty in "splendid isolation." It was
only gradually that limb after limb was added, and subsequently
constructed railways were incorporated or absorbed, until the
consolidated system obtained the rather attenuated proportions with which
we are familiar to-day, stretching from Whitchurch, on the Cheshire
border, to Aberystwyth, on the shores of Cardigan Bay, with its two chief
subsidiary "sections," one (including some half dozen miles of the
original track) from Moat Lane Junction to Brecon, and another from Dovey
Junction to Pwllheli; shorter branches or connecting lines from Ellesmere
to Wrexham, Oswestry to Llangynog, Llanymynech to Llanfyllin, Abermule to
Kerry, Cemmes Road to Dinas Mawddwy, Barmouth Junction to Dolgelley, and
two lengths of narrow gauge line, from Welshpool to Llanfair Caereinion
and Aberystwyth to Devil's Bridge, altogether exactly 300 miles.
Such, in briefest outline, denotes how "the Cambrian" began and what it
has grown to be; but there is little virtue in a mere recital of
statistics, and the writing of "history," of the kind once defined by the
late Lord Halsbury as "only a string of names and dates" would be no
congenial task to the present author. Nor, happily, is it necessary to
confine oneself to such barren and unemotional limits. It is not in the
record of train miles run, of the number of passengers and the weight of
the merchandise carried, or even in the dividends earned, or not earned
(though these factors are not without their value to the proprietors)
that the chief interest in the story of a railway lies. {2} Very often
it is the tale of unending trial and difficulty and even apparent failure
which holds for the spectator the largest measure of romance, and such is
certainly the case of what, at one time, was, with quite as much
sympathetic affection as contempt, popularly called "the poor old
Cambrian." There were times when the difficulties which faced its
constructors appeared to be absolutely insuperable. What with the
enormous weight of its cradle, measured in gold, and the continual
quarrels of its nurses, the undertaking was well nigh strangled at birth.
Even when the line was actually opened for traffic a burden of financial
difficulty rested upon Directors and Managers that might have crushed the
spirit out of many a stout heart.
Judged by the maturer experience of long years, it is wonderful to think
that, even under the most careful management, the Company should have
been able to survive its constant buffetings at the hand of Fate, but
survive it has, and by eternal patience and unfailing perseverance these
many troubles were at length overcome, and if to-day the railway offers
facilities and comforts to the travelling public that stand the test of
comparison with such as are provided by the great trunk lines of England
and Scotland, it is no small tribute to those who have worked long and
labouring to bring its services to their present high standard of
efficiency.
But of the Cambrian as we know it to-day there will be something more to
be said presently. Biography, by time-honoured custom, if not necessity,
begins with birth and parentage; and, though corporate bodies may often
experience some difficulty about laying claim to a "lang pedigree," even
a railway company cannot come into existence without considerable
pre-natal labour.
Among its parents the Cambrian possessed some men of rare grit and
determination. Prominent among them was one who ranks high among the
makers of modern Wales, whose name has become a household word not only
in his native land, but wherever Welshmen congregate throughout the
world, and is still, by happy coincidence, intimately associated, in the
third generation, with the Cambrian to-day. The story of David Davies of
Llandinam has been fully told in other pages, {4} but it is so closely
woven around the romance of the railway which he did so much to bring
into being that no record of that undertaking would be complete without
some reference to it, however brief. Born at a small holding called
Draintewion, perched on the hillside overlooking the Severn Vale near
Llandinam, the eldest of a family of nine children, on December 18,
1818,--"three eighteens," as he used in later life jocularly to
remark--his boyhood was spent on the little plot of land tilling its rich
soil, or helping his father, in the work of sawing timber into planks, a
commodity for which public demand was then rapidly increasing. His only
schooling was received in a little seminary carried on in the village
church, and that wonderful educational institution of rural Wales, the
Sunday School. But at the age of eleven the desk was deserted for the
saw bench, and the rest of his instruction was derived at "the University
of Observation, in which he took not a mere 'pass' but very high
'honours'." A keen observation of human nature, a shrewd judgment of men
and beast, and a ready aptitude for application of native wit to the
problems of life developed David Davies into the man of wealth and power
he ultimately became. Even in his school days, however, these latent
traits were not unobservable. It is recorded that "he was the winner of
every game." He may have had a generous portion of what men call "luck,"
but to it was added the still more valuable element of industry and
perseverance and healthy ambition. He knew how to take the chances which
came his way, which is probably the secret of success with many who "get
on." When opportunity offered to enter a new path he readily seized it,
and from the hewer of wood he became the modest contractor, and
ultimately the greater builder of bridges, docks and railways.
[Picture: Some Parents of the Cambrian: reading top left to bottom right:
The later MR. DAVID DAVIES, M.P., one of the first contractors; The late
MR. THOMAS SAVIN, Mr. Davies's first partner and a contractor of other
parts of the line; The late MR. BENJAMIN PIERCY, Engineer of many of the
early lines; The late MR. ABRAHAM HOWELL, Solicitor of the Oswestry and
Newtown, and a promoter of Montgomeryshire Rys]
Passengers travelling along the Cambrian line from Moat Lane Junction to
Llanidloes, may notice, at Llandinam, the roadway which runs below the
church, and crosses the river on an embankment to the station. The
construction of that highway was the first contract which David Davies
held, and it stands to-day, hard by the statue of him which has since
been erected, as a monument of his self-reliant zeal and sound
workmanship. Other contracts followed, including that for the
construction of Oswestry Smithfield, and it was during one of his visits
to that town that Mr. Davies formed a friendship which led to a
partnership that, in its turn, played a potent part in the making of the
Cambrian.
For in Oswestry there lived Mr. Thomas Savin, who had been born, in 1826,
at Llwynymaen, and was a partner in a mercer's business with Mr. Edward
Morris (who afterwards purchased and sold the Van Mine near Caersws),
under the style of Messrs. Morris and Savin. Mr. Savin's mind, however,
was not entirely concentrated on measuring cloth and calico. He took a
keen interest in the life of the town, and was an energetic supporter of
local institutions. Elected to the Town Council in 1856, he was mayor in
1863, and appointed alderman in 1871, an office he retained to the end of
his varied life. But these honours had yet to come. Already, at the
time of which we are now writing, Mr. Savin had visions of a larger
enterprise beyond the boundaries of his native borough.
Like many large and generous-hearted men, Mr. Savin was very impetuous
and impatient of delays. On one occasion, it is related, when still a
mercer at Oswestry, he drove over to a Welsh border market town to sell
his wares. It was the custom there for farmers to decline to look at any
other business till the sale of the live stock was disposed of, and the
market being loth to start and Mr. Savin eager to be home again, he
rushed into the arena and startled the company present by buying a
thousand sheep. This was before he became associated with railway
pioneering, but it is a characteristic example of that dramatic
impulsiveness which led to his subsequent success--and failure.
Caught by the spirit of venture and enthusiasm, which had swept over the
country after the successful opening of the Manchester and Liverpool
Railway in 1830, his thoughts had begun to turn to railway production,
and the meeting with the young Montgomeryshire road and bridge builder
opened the looked for door. In a room over the tobacconist shop now
occupied by Mr. Richards, opposite the Post Office, in Church Street,
Oswestry, and close to the premises in which, some fifteen or sixteen
years earlier another notable man, Shirley Brooks, afterwards editor of
"Punch," had toiled as a lawyer's article pupil to his uncle, Mr. Charles
Sabine, Mr. Davies and Mr. Savin were brought together by Mr. George
Owen, himself destined to play no small part in the planning of the
Cambrian. A man of Kent, native of Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Owen had begun
his business career in the office of Mr. Charles Mickleburgh, land
surveyor, agent and enclosure commissioner, of Montgomery, one of whose
daughters he subsequently married. He worked side by side with another
young engineer, of whom we shall hear more presently,--Mr. Benjamin
Piercy, under whose initial leadership, Mr. Owen, as resident engineer,
was to serve the local railway for many a long year. Nor was that the
only capacity in which his gifts were displayed. Making Oswestry his
home, he became a member of the Town Council in 1860, mayor in 1864 and
1865, and alderman in 1874. For twenty years he was a member of the
General Purposes Committee, served as borough and county magistrate, and
was a member of the School Board from its inception, and chairman from
1891 till his death in 1901. Indeed, there was no interest in the
town,--administrative, commercial and recreative,--in which he did not
fill a conspicuous role. But, perhaps, of all his services to the
community, none was more opportune or more prolific of far-reaching
results than that happy inspiration of introducing Messrs. Davies and
Savin.
II.
Still, it takes more than a couple of contractors, however enthusiastic,
to construct a railway. Though the more visible, the organiser of the
labour is not the only parent. Not less essential, in his creative
function, is the capitalist; and even the powerful combination of
capitalist and contractor is insufficient to carry matters to a practical
conclusion without the expert guidance of the engineer. Nevertheless,
Messrs. Davies and Savin, as the new partnership was termed, had not long
to wait before their opportunity arrived.
The great "railway mania" which reached its climax on that notable
Sunday, November 30th, 1845, to be followed by the catastrophic bursting
of the bubble, had left men rather sobered in their outlook upon the
future possibilities of speculation in this alluring direction. It had
witnessed the formulation of no fewer than 1,263 separate railway
schemes, involving an (hypothetical) expenditure of 560 millions
sterling, of which 643 got no further than the issue of a prospectus,
while over 500 went through all the necessary stages of being brought
before Parliament and 272 actually became Acts--"to the ruin of thousands
who had afterwards to find the money to fulfil the engagements into which
they had so rashly entered."
Amongst these was a Bill for converting the Montgomeryshire Canal into a
railway line, for which an Act was passed in 1846, but it was a
hare-brained scheme and soon came to nought. Other proposals, however,
developed into what promised, and have since proved, to be highly
profitable enterprises. The western Midlands and North Wales had been
linked by the line from Shrewsbury to Chester, which Mr. Henry Robertson,
M.P., for the former town and afterwards for the County of Merioneth, in
which his residence, Pale, near Corwen, was situate, had carried over the
great viaducts of Chirk and Cefn. From Chester, Mr. Robert Stephenson,
even more daring, had flung his extension of the North Western system, by
way of
"The magic Bridge of Bangor
Hung awful in the sky." {8}
across the Menai Straits into Anglesey and so to Holyhead. The air was
again thick, and to become thicker, with new adventures. Hardly a valley
in North or Central Wales but had its ardent advocates of connecting
lines. Within a short time newspaper columns were to be flooded with
prospectuses of all sorts of schemes. Parliamentary committee rooms
buzzed with forensic eloquence about the advantages and disadvantages of
this or that route. Expert witnesses swore this, that, or anything else,
as expert witnesses generally will, provided, that like the gentlemen who
question and cross-question them, they are sufficiently briefed. In vain
did the secluded Lake Poet protest:
"Is there no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault?"
The iron road was to come, and come it did, all conquering and, not so
unbeneficial, after all, in its rule.
Amidst this welter of proposals and counter-proposals there emerged,
sometime during 1852 a scheme, propounded by Mr. Bethell, of Westminster
for constructing a railway connecting the existing line at Shrewsbury
with Aberystwyth. It was to run by way of the Rea Valley, through
Minsterley, and to strike the Severn Valley again in the neighbourhood of
Montgomery, whence it was to continue through Newtown and Llanidloes.
This was quickly followed by another for a line from Oswestry to Newtown,
which was projected under Shrewsbury and Chester Railway auspices. To
the latter Mr. Bethell replied by transferring his scheme to the North
Western Company, whose engineers remodelled it. With a view to driving
any rival Montgomeryshire scheme out of the field, the proposed new line
was diverted from the Rea Valley to pass by way of Criggion and Welshpool
to Newtown, with a branch from Criggion to Oswestry, and between Newtown
and Aberystwyth it was altered to go by Machynlleth, instead of
Llanidloes.
This sort of strategy, however, only seemed to stimulate the men of
Montgomeryshire to fresh determination to show their independence, and in
this they had the adventitious aid of a very influential neighbour, Mr.
George Hammond Whalley.
[Picture: The late MR. G. H. WHALLEY, M.P., from a Portrait presented by
the citizens of Peterborough, and now hanging in Peterborough Museum]
Mr. Whalley was a very remarkable man. A native of Gloucester, according
to "Debrett," he was a lineal descendant of Edward Whalley (first cousin
to Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden), who signed the warrant for the
execution of Charles I. At the University College, London, he carried
off first prize in rhetoric and logic, afterwards was called to the bar,
for some years went the Oxford Circuit and acted as Assistant Tithe
Commissioner, and Examiner of Private Bills for Parliament. He lived at
Plas Madoc, Ruabon, was a deputy lieutenant for Denbighshire and a
magistrate for that county, Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire. In 1853
he acted as High Sheriff of Carnarvonshire, and at the time of the
Crimean War he volunteered the services of the troop of Denbighshire
Yeomanry Cavalry of which he was Captain and received the thanks of the
War Office. Some years earlier, during the Irish famine, he established
fisheries on the west coast of Ireland, and, in his own yacht, explored
and ascertained the position of the fishing banks. The electors of
Leominster declined to return him to Parliament in 1845, as did also the
Montgomery Boroughs in 1852; but later that year he was elected for
Peterborough, unseated on petition, re-elected the next year and again
unseated. He unsuccessfully contested the same constituency in 1857, but
was elected in May 1859 and sat till his death in 1878, during his
Parliamentary career devoting a good deal of attention to the reform of
private bill procedure on which he carried a not unimportant measure.
But he was no mere meticulous lawyer. His frantic espousal of the
Protestant cause, supposed by the timid in the middle of last century to
be in some danger in England, earned him a good deal of notoriety and a
popular name. Hardly more eccentric was the warm support he gave to the
cause of Arthur Orton in his claim to the title and estate of Sir Roger
Tichborne. On one of the last visits he paid to Oswestry he called to
see a friend. As he was leaving his friend's office he suddenly turned
round and asked "Do you believe in the Claimant?" The reply was an
emphatic negative. "Ah," exclaimed the departing visitor, "you will come
to!"
But if Mr. Whalley was a bad prophet in this respect, his instinct did
not always mislead him. He believed in himself, which was not only a
more substantial faith, but more to the point in this narrative, for it
enabled him, by dint of self-assurance, largely to dominate, and
occasionally to domineer, the railway world of Montgomeryshire and the
adjacent counties and to contribute in no small measure to the successful
accomplishment of several local schemes.
Conspicuous among them was the Llanidloes and Newtown. Though an
isolated link in itself, it was intended to form part of a chain that was
to stretch from Manchester and the industrial north to Milford Haven, a
famous Welsh seaport, and this dream was constantly in the mind of local
promoters whenever and wherever such sectional schemes were discussed.
On October 30th, 1852, a meeting was held at Llanidloes, with Mr. Whalley
in the chair, at which the project was cordially adopted, a committee
formed to further its achievement by raising the necessary subscriptions,
and arrangements made for carrying the fiery cross of propaganda to
Newtown and Rhayader, and as far afield as Aberystwyth. On this
effective errand Mr. Whalley and his coadjutors stumped the countryside,
and "inn bills" began to form no inconsiderable item in the promoters'
balance sheets. But nothing can be accomplished in this world without
effort and expenditure; and to the missionaries' warning words against
"the evil of conceding to an overbearing leviathan neighbour any
privileges calculated to endanger the independence of their little
company," we are informed by a chronicler of the day, "the county nobly
responded, and petitions were sent from every district, praying for the
recognition by Parliament of the principles so ably enunciated by Mr.
Whalley."
The "little company" had, indeed, good reason to be apprehensive; but
fortune favoured its course. Before this onslaught, even the
"overbearing leviathan" quailed. After long and costly struggle in the
Parliamentary committee rooms, accommodation was reached, and in the
House of Commons the Montgomeryshire promoters' scheme passed with flying
colours; but an unfortunate error, by which the levels were proved to be
some 18 feet below the Severn water, wrecked it in the Lords. In August,
1853, however, the scheme received Parliamentary sanction, and out of the
long list of "provisional directors" appointed the previous year, the
first board was formed. They were:--Mr. Whalley, chairman; Mr. W.
Lefeaux, vice-chairman; Alderman E. Cleaton, Llanidloes; Alderman Richard
Holmes, Llanidloes; Mr. Wm. Lloyd, Newtown; Mr. Edward Morris, Oxon,
Shrewsbury; Mr. T. E. Marsh, Llanidloes, and Mr. T. Prickard, Dderw,
Radnorshire. Mr. Rice Hopkins was the engineer, Mr. T. P. Prichard,
general manager, and Mr. John Jenkins, secretary. Mr. Jenkins, however,
soon transferred his services to the office of auditor, and was succeeded
by Mr. Thomas Hayward.
III.
And so, with eager hearts, directors looked forward to a rosy future. It
is interesting to recall what, in their opinion, the financial prospects
of the line were. Larger schemes loomed in ambitious minds, but, even
confined to the local line along the Severn valley, the estimated revenue
was as follows:--
Passengers 2,350 pounds
Coal 750 pounds
Lead, Copper, and Barytes Ore 1,700 pounds
Timber (chiefly used in working the mines) 900 pounds
Iron, Powder, and other articles used by miners 75 pounds
Lime for Agricultural and other purposes 900 pounds
Corn, Flour, and other Agricultural Produce 600 pounds
Cattle, Sheep, and other animals 300 pounds
Wool and Woollen Manufactures 225 pounds
General Merchandise and Shop Goods 250 pounds
Building Stone, Tiles, Bricks, etc. 200 pounds
Total 8,250 pounds
Estimating working expenses at 50 per cent., that left a surplus of 4,125
pounds, being nearly 7 per cent. per annum on 60,000 pounds, the required
capital. With such a scheme the majority of the local owners readily
expressed their agreement, and arrangements were made for cutting of the
first sod, in a field which was to form the site of the Llanidloes
station, on October 3rd, 1855. Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, was invited to
perform the ceremony, but, owing to what she regarded as a premature
announcement of the fact in the "Shrewsbury Chronicle," that lady sent an
advertisement to the journal announcing the postponement of the function.
Pages of the Company's minute book were devoted to expressions of the
Board's "utmost astonishment" and demands for explanations. Mrs. Owen
was at no loss for material to furnish equally voluminous reply, the pith
of which was that she was simply inspired by a desire to obtain time,
both to secure the attendance of her influential friends and to inform
herself of the financial position of the undertaking.
It was all a storm in a tea-cup, but it was a very severe storm while it
lasted; and Mr. Whalley had to cut the sod himself, in a deluge of rain,
taking occasion, however, in doing so, to express, in graceful terms, the
disappointment felt at the absence of one "who had done so much to
introduce improved means of communication through the county," a
reference equally gracefully acknowledged by letter from Glansevern a few
days later. "Up to the present period," wrote Mrs. Owen, "we have been
strangers in this part of the county to the preparations necessary for
inaugurating a railway, and it should not, therefore, be wondered at if
our first attempt should not have been attended with _perfect success_;
misapprehension, excess of zeal and inexperience might all lead to
mistakes and errors, and it is not, perhaps, possible for us all to
escape censure."
Perhaps not. At any rate, it was a philosophic conclusion, and it
enabled the Board, with unruffled feathers, to proceed to the business of
receiving tenders for the construction of the line. Out of seven, the
lowest was that of Mr. David Davies, who was, moreover, prepared to
accept part payment in shares, an arrangement which, later, paved the way
to the process of leasing these local railways to the contractors, that
became almost a custom. Hardly, however, had these preliminaries been
successfully negotiated, when Mr. Rice Hopkins died, and after a
temporary agreement with one of his relatives to carry on in an advisory
capacity, the Board proceeded to select a successor out of four "persons
who presented themselves as eligible for this purpose."
Their choice was easily made. The line was being built by a local
contractor. Fate was now to throw up a new engineer, whose claims were
not less obvious on similar grounds. A native of Trefeglwys, Mr.
Benjamin Piercy had, from an early age, taken great interest in railway
planning, and, though this branch of the profession did not directly
touch his daily routine, he devoted many leisure hours to its study. In
his journeys through Wales he was impressed with the necessity of opening
out its valleys to the great railway world that was developing beyond the
English border, and when Mr. Henry Robertson began to make his surveys of
the Shrewsbury and Chester line, Mr. Piercy became one of his assistants.
So diligently did the young man discharge his duties here that, it is
recorded, he was the means of preventing the loss of a year in obtaining
the Act for the making of this line.
It was natural, therefore, that, when the Rea Valley line was being
mooted, he should be engaged to prepare the Parliamentary plans. It was
in this connection that an untoward incident occurred, which throws some
light on the tremendous rivalry that existed among the promoters of
various railway schemes and the means that were sometimes adopted to
thwart the progress of antagonistic proposals. Mr. Piercy had, with
great energy, got his plans ready and taken them to London, but they were
surreptitiously removed from his room at the hotel, and the matter was
hung up for a year. In the meantime, as we have already noted, the line
of route was changed. In the following year, however, he duly deposited
the plans for the railway from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, with a branch to
Minsterley, already mentioned. Although strongly opposed, at every
stage, including Standing Orders, Mr. Piercy succeeded in carrying the
Bill through both Houses, and it received the Royal assent. It was in
the Select Committees on this Bill that he first made his reputation as a
witness in Parliamentary Committees. After this he was engaged upon
nearly all the projects for introducing independent railways into Wales,
all of them meeting with fierce opposition. For several days
consecutively he was as a witness under cross-examination by the genial
Mr. Serjeant Merewether, and other eminent counsel, but so little headway
were they able to make against Mr. Piercy that, upon one occasion, when a
Committee passed a Bill of his, Mr. Merewether held up his brief-bag and
asked the Committee whether they would not give that too to Mr. Piercy.
{16}
[Picture: The late MR. GEORGE OWEN, Engineer of the Cambrian Railways for
many years]
In 1858 Mr. Piercy was formally appointed engineer to the Company. With
the assistance of Mr. George Owen, the cordial co-operation of Messrs.
Davies and Savin, and under the enthusiastic leadership of Mr. Whalley,
he was destined to carry these undertakings into being, and to nurture
them in their infancy, and thus to join the little group of pioneer
workers who, in their several capacities, may, in special degree, be
termed the parents of the Cambrian.
CHAPTER II. A BIRTHDAY PARTY.
"_A birthday_:--_and now a day that rose_
_with much of hope, with meaning rife_--
_A thoughtful day from dawn to close_."
--JEAN INGLEOW.
With the advent of the young Montgomeryshire engineer, and his cordial
co-operation with the Montgomeryshire contractor, the public began
eagerly to count the days, or at any rate, the months, before the due
arrival of the first Montgomeryshire railway. The prospects of a
punctual delivery were eminently propitious. In his first report, Mr.
Piercy was able to announce substantial progress with the work, which was
being carried out by Messrs. Davies and Savin, "at a cost below that of
any railway yet brought into operation." True, there were one or two
inevitable set-backs. One of the engines which had arrived by road, and
been set on the rails at Newtown, refused properly to perform its duty;
but, fortunately, a Mr. Howell, of Hawarden, who knew all about the
intricate interior of these new-fangled monsters, happened to be staying
at Llanidloes, and he was called in to diagnose and advise, with
effective result.
A more serious problem was the revision of the terms of the lease of the
line to Messrs. Davies and Savin, which a committee of shareholders were
busily engaged in attempting to carry forward. Complications of another
sort led Mr. Piercy to tender his resignation, which, being somewhat
peremptorily refused, he withdrew. Still further anxiety and
considerable expense was involved in the prosecution of Parliamentary
application for power to extend the line from the originally designed
terminus at Newtown to the Shropshire Union Canal; for, though it was
only a matter of some quarter of a mile, it was strenuously opposed in
both Houses. Such were the distractions which beset railway building in
those days; but enthusiasm and determination still triumphed, and the
work proceeded along the line with sufficient rapidity to admit its being
opened for mineral traffic on April 30th, 1859. At the very last moment
trouble was experienced in obtaining the necessary certificate of the
Board of Trade for passenger traffic, but that precious document came to
hand on August 9th, and, with more fortunate outcome than on a previous
occasion, Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, was invited to perform the pleasing
duty of declaring the line open.
The day fixed was Wednesday, August 31st, and a local newspaper gives us
some account of the proceedings:--"Preparations were made on an extensive
scale, and the day was ushered in by cannon firing, bell-ringing, and the
hearty congratulations of the people of the town, with their country
friends, who flocked in to take part in the proceedings. The houses were
elegantly decorated with flags and banners, flowers and evergreens, and a
variety of mottoes, more or less appropriate. Amongst others we noticed,
on the Old Market Hall (which, by the way, it was a charity to hide from
the gaze of strangers), a profusion of flags, with a large banner in the
centre, 'Hail, Star of Brunswick.' The Red Lion exhibited a local
tribute to its friend, by placing on the door 'Welcome, Whalley, champion
of our rights.' The Railway Station was profusely decorated, and the
Queen's Head displayed an elegant archway of leaves and flowers. The
Trewythen Arms was also gaily covered with flags, and numbers of private
houses displayed a variety of gay decorations. The cold and wet state of
the weather in no way damped the ardour of the men of Montgomeryshire,
and they were rewarded by a speedy dispersion of clouds, and the grateful
warmth of the noonday sun. Llanidloes was all alive; business was
entirely suspended and soon after 9 o'clock a large crowd collected near
the public rooms, where a procession was formed, headed by the Plasmadoc
Brass Band, and accompanied in the following order by:--
The Mayor (W. Swancott, Esq.), and the Corporation consisting of Messrs.
R. Homes, E. Clayton, T. Davies, T. F. Roberts, D. Snead; L. Minshall,
Pugh, J. Jarman, Hamer, J. Mendus Jones,
Flag.
Banner,--'Whither Bound?' 'To Milford.'
Streamer. Banner. Streamer.
(With the inscription):
'G. H. Whalley, whose unceasing exertions are now crowned with success.'
Mr. G. H. Whalley, Chairman.
Deputy Chairman and Secretary, Directors.
Banner,--'The spirited contractors, Messrs. Davies & Savin.'
Streamer. Streamer.
Banner,--'Our Esteemed Patroness, Mrs. A. W. Owen.'
Mrs. Owen followed in a carriage.
Guests and Shareholders.
Ladies (two and two).
Gentlemen (two and two).
Streamer. Streamer.
Banner,--'Prosperity to the Towns of Llanidloes and Newtown.'
Excavators (with bannerets).
Flag,--'Live and let Live.'
The Public.
"The procession was marshalled by Mr. Marpole Lewis, and after parading
the streets, was met by Mrs. Owen, of Glansevern, who was accompanied by
some lady friends and Mr. Brace, and at another point by Mr. Whalley, the
chairman of the company. These arrivals were acknowledged with
vociferous cheering. The procession, like a rolling snowball, gained
bulk as it proceeded, and before it reached the station, comprehended a
very large proportion of the inhabitants,--ladies and gentlemen,--with a
good sprinkling of their neighbours. At the station there was a
considerable delay, awaiting the arrival of the train from Newtown. At
last it made its appearance, and the band struck up 'See the Conquering
Hero comes,'--an air far more appropriate when applied to the
'locomotive' than to one-half of the heroes to whom it has hitherto done
honour. The Mayor of Llanidloes, with the Corporation, Mrs. Owen and
party, and Mr. Whalley, accompanied by a very large number of the
inhabitants, then took their seats, and amidst the cheers of those left
behind, and counter cheers of the passengers, the train moved off and
proceeded slowly towards Newtown. {20}
"The train arrived shortly after 12 o'clock, when the procession
re-formed and escorted the Mayor and Corporation of Llanidloes, Mrs.
Owen, of Glansevern, Mr. Whalley, and other visitors, to Newtown Hall,
where an elegant _dejeuner_ had been provided by Dr. Slyman. The
decorations at Newtown Hall were chaste and beautiful. The verandah at
the front, was tastefully ornamented with flowers and evergreens,
surmounted by a number of elegant fuschias, in the centre of which stood
out a prettily worked 'Prince of Wales' Feathers.' A variety of flags
were placed around the pleasure ground, which gave a very striking effect
to the scene."
After the party had partaken of refreshments, there were toasts and
mutual congratulations, and the procession tramped back to the station.
"Again there was a little delay, awaiting the train from Llanidloes (says
our chronicler), and it was half-past three o'clock before _The Train_ of
the day fairly started. Filling the carriages and trucks was no joke.
Admirable arrangements had been made, and the ladies were first
accommodated with seats. One or two gentlemen did attempt to take their
place before this arrangement was fully carried out, but they were very
unceremoniously brought out again, amidst the ironical cheers of the
outsiders. At last the forty-eight trucks and carriages were loaded,
and, at a moderate estimate, we should say, 3,000 people were in the
train. The two new engines, The Llewelyn and The Milford, were attached
to the carriages, and were driven by Mr. T. D. Roberts and Mr. T. E.
Minshall. Although the train was so heavily laden with passengers, there
was a large crowd of people left to cheer as it slowly passed out of the
Station. The appearance of this monster train was magnificent. More
than 2,000 of the passengers were in open trucks, and at certain points,
where there was a curve in the line, and a good sight could be obtained,
the train, as it wound its way through the valley, presented a scene not
easily to be erased from the memory.
"Soon after four o'clock Llanidloes Station was reached, and the
passengers alighted amidst the shouts of the inhabitants, who had come to
welcome them. A large circle was formed in the field adjoining the
Station, and Mr. Whalley introduced to those assembled Mrs. Owen, of
Glansevern, who declared the line to be opened."
It hardly required her stirring words to enlist the enthusiasm of the
company concerning the economic change which the railways were to bring
to Wales. Derelict acres were to be brought into cultivation; "the very
central town of the ancient Principality," in which that ceremony was
taking place, was to become the capital of a new prosperity, and as for
Mr. Whalley, were not that day's proceedings "a chapter more honourable
than any wreath of laurel that could be won on the battle field by
success in war?" The plaudits of the assembled confirmed the sentiment,
and "a rush was then made for the tent where the luncheon was provided.
Here again the ladies had the same proper attention paid to them; the
sterner sex was kept out until they could be accommodated with seats.
After a short delay the tent was well filled with visitors, and upwards
of 300 sat down to lunch. Grace was said by the Rector of Llanidloes,
and for a season the clatter of knives and forks was the only sound to be
heard."
Small wonder! For the afternoon was well advanced, and the time-table
had gone rather awry. But that did not in the least damp the ardour of
the company. Refreshed by their belated meal, more toasts were honoured,
more speeches made, and the future continued to assume the most roseate
hue. The district, declared one orator, was destined to become "the
abode of smiling happiness," and Newtown and Llanidloes "the haunts and
hives of social industry." It was, said another, the first link in a
chain "which must, ere long, form one of the greatest and most important
trunk lines in the kingdom." "People," exclaimed a third, "laughed at it
because it had no head or tail"; but let the scoffers wait and see! With
all these glowing anticipations, proceedings became so protracted that
the ladies had to withdraw, but the gentlemen went on drinking toasts
with undiminished energy. They drank to the Chairman; they drank to the
Secretary; they drank to the Engineer, and the Contractors, and the
Bankers who had lent them the money, and to the success of the other
railways springing up around them, including the Mid-Wales, the first sod
of which was to be cut in a few days' time, with what strange
accompaniment will be noted in a subsequent chapter. Not until the
health of the Press,--"may its perfect independence ever expose abuses
and advocate what is just, through evil and through good report,"--had
been duly honoured did the company disperse.
The workmen, too, were entertained, with good fare and more speeches.
Salvers and cake baskets were presented to Messrs. Davies and Savin.
Master Edward Davies, aged 5, and Master Tom Savin, aged 6, were held up
aloft, and presented with watches, and the cheering, which had gone on
almost continuously for hours, broke forth afresh. One of the workmen,
who was also, at any rate, in the opinion of his colleagues, something of
a poet, stepped forward, and, "amidst roars of laughter and tremendous
cheering," sang his thanks as follows:--
Well now we've got a railway,
The truth to you I'll tell,
To be opened in August,
The people like it well;
We've heard a deal of rumour
O'er all the country wide,
We'll never get a railway,
The people can't provide.
Well now we have the carriages,
For pleasure trips to ride;
The Milford it shall run us,
And Henry lad shall drive;
There's also Jack the stoker,
So handy and so free,
He lives now at Llandiman,
A buxom lad is he.
We have a first rate gentleman
Who does very nigh us dwell,
And he has got a partner,
The people like him well;
Look at the trucks my boys,
Their names you'll plainly see;
They've took another Railway,
There's plenty of work for we.
Well now our gen'rous masters
Do handsomely provide
A store of meat and drink my boys,
Come out and take a ride;
For we are in our ribbons,
And dress'd so neat and trim;
Drink up my charming Sally,
We'll fill it to the brim.
When these few days are over,
The navvies they will part,
And go back to their gangers
With blithe and cheerful heart;
And Jack he will be hooting,
And getting drunk full soon;
I wish there was a railway
To be opened every moon.
And now I have to finish,
And shall conclude my song;
I hope and trust my good friends,
I've stated nothing wrong;
All you young men and maidens,
That are so full of play,
I hope you'll all take tickets
On that most glorious day.
"When the song was concluded, Colonel Wynn purchased the first copy, for
which the fortunate bard received a shilling. Several other gentlemen
followed this example, and the poet must have regretted that his stock in
trade was so limited.
"During the latter part of the proceedings, several had left the
enclosure to join the merry dance, to the strains of the Welshpool Band,
in the adjoining field. We cannot use the usual stock phrase of the
penny-a-liner and say to 'trip it on the light fantastic toe,' for in
several instances a pair of stalwart navvies might be seen in anything
but dancing pumps kicking out most gloriously. In another part of the
field, a party were deeply engaged in an exciting game of football. All
was mirth and jollity. From the oldest to the youngest, the richest to
the poorest, every one seemed to try to get as much enjoyment out of the
evening as possible, and if there were any grumblers to be found at
Messrs. Davies and Savin's monster picnic, the fault must have been with
themselves.
"The same evening rejoicings were being kept up at Llanidloes. All the
school children of the place were feasted in the tent. Mr. Whalley (the
'champion of the people's rights,' as the flag had it) was chaired
through the town, and the evening was finished by a ball. And on the
following day, several loaves of bread and gallons of porter were sent by
Messrs. Davies and Savin to the poor people of Llandinam." Finally, a
medal was struck in commemoration of the event, and presented to the
workmen.
Thus, sixty-three years ago, did the community, already conscious of the
momentous influence the steam engine was exerting upon the social and
economic condition of the countryside, but yet to discover the not less
remarkable potentialities of the electric or the petrol spark applied to
the problems of transport, herald the birth of the infant Cambrian.
CHAPTER III. EARLY DEVELOPMENTS AND DIFFICULTIES.
"_We may perceive plenty of wrong turns taken at cross roads, time
misused or wasted, gold taken for dross and dross for gold, manful
effort mis-directed, facts misread, men misjudged_. _And yet those
who have felt life no stage play, but a hard campaign with some lost
battles, may still resist all spirit of general insurgence in the
evening of their day_."--VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN.
Though one or two earlier bubbles, blown by eager railway promoters, had
burst almost as they left the bowl of the pipe, the issue of the
prospectus of the Montgomeryshire Railways Company, in 1852, not
unnaturally inspired new hope in the border counties of some extension of
already projected lines in the locality. At Oswestry, in particular,
there was a rapidly growing feeling that such a development was overdue,
and they looked with eager eyes towards the possibility of forging a
connecting link with the system growing up in the heart of Powysland.
The Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, soon to become part of the Great
Western, had opened its branch to the busy Shropshire market centre under
the hills at the beginning of 1849,--the year which saw the birth of the
Oswestry Market and of the "Oswestry Advertizer," which, in its earlier
years, was to devote so many pages to the record of the making of the
Cambrian. But beyond Oswestry travellers had to proceed by coach. The
"Royal Oak," leaving the town daily at one o'clock, arrived at Newtown
about five. Goods were carried by more ponderous road transport, and it
is rather astonishing to recal that as late as 1853 dogs were employed as
draught animals, and local records include the circumstance of the death
of a "respected tradesman" by a fall from his horse, caused by the
animal's "fright at one of the carts drawn by the dogs, which are much
too often seen on the roads in this neighbourhood." Legislation was soon
to prohibit this custom, and railways to make it unnecessary.
[Picture: Some early Chairmen: reading from top left to bottom, The late
EARL VANE (afterwards Marquis Of Londonderry). Chairman of the Newtown
and Machynlleth railway Co. and first Chairman of the Consolidated
Cambrian Rys. Co., 1864-1884; The late MR. W. ORMSBY-GORE, First Chairman
of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway Co.; The late SIR W. W. WYNN, BART.,
Second Chairman of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway Co.]
It was, then, in an Oswestry of very different social habits to those of
to-day that, on June 23rd, 1853, the townspeople assembled at the call of
the Mayor, Mr. William Hodges, to consider the question of a possible
extension of the "Montgomeryshire Railway," in their direction, which was
declared by resolution to be the "only scheme before Parliament capable
of effecting this most desirable object."
But railways are not built by resolution alone, or the whole countryside
would soon have become heavy with steam. As a matter of fact, it soon
was, but not the sort of steam which drives locomotives or urges on the
progress of practical railway construction. Ever since 1844, reliance
had been placed in the possibility of assistance from one or both of the
great lines which already had access to the Welsh border. Hope was first
centred in the North Western, which had designs on a line from Shrewsbury
into Montgomeryshire, but, in the Oswestry area, wistful eyes turned
towards Paddington, and in propitiation of expected favours to come, four
men with Great Western interests,--Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore, who became its
first chairman; Sir Watkin, who later succeeded him in the chair; Col.
Wynn, M.P., and Mr. Rowland James Venables,--were placed on the Oswestry
and Newtown Board. The Earl of Powis, though a "North Westerner," was
found to be not without ready desire to look at things all round. He was
for a line to Shrewsbury, and also a line to Oswestry, but not to
Oswestry alone. Even the line to Oswestry, according to North Western
notions, was to be a branch either from Garthmyl or Criggion, according
to whether the Shrewsbury and Montgomeryshire line went by the Rea Valley
or by Alberbury, and that was not at all to Oswestrian taste. In the
end, however, his lordship agreed to support the Oswestry project, and to
take the value of his land,--some 10,000 pounds,--in shares, provided the
possessor of Powis Castle was allowed to nominate a director, as the
owner of Wynnstay was on the Great Western Board. The condition was
readily granted, and the Oswestry and Newtown Bill, freed from North
Western opposition, was allowed to pass. It obtained Royal Assent on
June 26th, 1855, and the first general meeting was held at Welshpool on
July 21st of that year.
Local rivalries, however, were not so easily dispelled. Welshpool's
impartiality as between the Shrewsbury and the Oswestry lines was
anathema at the latter town, where Mr. Whalley, speaking for nearly an
hour and a half, readily persuaded a great meeting to register its
insistence on the Oswestry scheme as an extension of the Llanidloes and
Newtown, and so form another link in the chain that was to bind
Manchester and Milford. Anyhow, Oswestry must be made "the initial town
and not Newtown." In support of this the local promoters looked for
substantial aid from the Great Western. But that company proved
singularly unready to render any assistance. "Not only," said Mr.
Abraham Howell, in giving evidence before Lord Stanley's Committee some
years later, "did the Great Western not aid in the capital for the
Oswestry, but they did not support the Shrewsbury. On the contrary they
opposed it with all their efforts at every step. They also, by a
manoeuvre which their position of power over the Oswestry Company and
their railway experience enabled them to carry out, succeeded in
separating the Shrewsbury from the main line, and causing it to drift
into the hands of the North Western. They, on the day of, or immediately
before the Wharncliffe meeting of the Oswestry Company, got their friends
to pay into the bankers in respect of their shares, and give their
proxies to the extent of the 0.25th in money, against the clauses in the
Shrewsbury bill, by which it was intended to connect it with the
Oswestry. By this means they cut off from the Welsh line their head and
outlet at Shrewsbury, leaving them with the Oswestry head only, to which
place they, the Great Western, alone had access, and therefore, under
their exclusive power; a result which proved highly detrimental to the
Oswestry and the Welshpool lines. During the five years from 1855 to
1859 the advantage given to the Great Western interest placed our company
practically under their control."
Small wonder that public impatience began to show signs of strain.
Cynical allusions appeared in the Press. "The only danger in making
oneself liable for new schemes," wrote one captious critic, "arises from
the possibility of their being proceeded with." Not even the "glorious
news" of the fall of Sebastopol sufficed to deflect the local mind from
the irritating habits of a dilatory directorate. After all, the Crimea
was a long way off,--much further than Chirk,--to which place, the Great
Western Company, on taking over the Shrewsbury and Chester line, had,
under the profession of "revising" the fares, substantially raised them.
This habit is one to which the community has become more accustomed in
recent years, but that was a first experience of the ways of powerful
monopolists, and it effectively emphasised the contention that it was
high time "an independent" railway company, more directly under local
control, should materialise.
Addresses were exchanged between Oswestry and Welshpool, much after the
manner of diplomatic "Notes," some of them phrased in the spirited
language which diplomats know so well how to cloak in conventional
formulas. Occasionally even the conventional formulas were dispensed
with. Questions concerning the legality of certain assemblies were
pugnaciously raised and as pugnaciously answered. Four hours' somewhat
heated discussion at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders at
Welshpool carried matters no further than the decision that the first
sod, when it was cut, should be of Montgomeryshire soil, "but whether,"
adds a critical commentator, "at Llanymynech, Welshpool or Newtown, no
one knows." Fresh controversy arose concerning the secretaryship, to
which office Mr. Princep had been appointed by Mr. Ormsby-Gore, after a
very fleeting appearance on the kaleidoscopic scene of a Mr. Farmer, and
the old rivalry of Great Western and North Western "interests"
re-appeared in fresh form. The "Oswestry Advertizer," pointing the
warning finger at the fate of another Welsh railway which, after 25,000
pounds out of a total capital of 400,000 pounds had been raised, found
everything "swallowed up in the gulph of Chancery" under the winding-up
Acts, proclaimed,--"We are almost afraid the Oswestry and Newtown is
doomed to the same end." It certainly looked as if a true prophet was
writing that dirge!
"It is hardly possible," says Mr. Howell, "to conceive a more deplorable
state than that to which the company was reduced during this period of
five years of Great-western _regime_. Every shilling that could be
realized of the proceeds of a very superior share list was expended, debt
was accumulated, every resource was exhausted; but comparatively little
was done in the execution of the works; the company was involved in four
chancery suits, of large proportions, and a law suit, and with other
suits in prospect. It was necessary to provide 45,000 pounds in cash,
towards relieving the chairman from a personal liability of 75,000
pounds, and to let free the action of the company from the chancery
suits; also further sums to discharge the claims of the contractors and
carry on the works." So moribund, indeed, did the whole affair seem,
that the North Western, treating it as practically extinct, began to
consider a scheme for converting the Shropshire Union Canal, already in
their hands, as a railway to Newtown!
And here were the promoters of this ill-starred project fighting amongst
themselves. One party was for keeping back the line from Oswestry till,
as a newspaper writer put it, "a rival to Shrewsbury is brought into
condition to do it damage." Another was for complicating it with other
new schemes. One of the sternest of all controversies still raged round
the moot point whether the line was to run from Oswestry to Newtown or
from Newtown to Oswestry, and even private friends fell out as to the
exact spot on the proposed route at which the actual work should begin!
"Discord triumphs--local prejudice is rampart--personal ill-will
abounds--as a necessary consequence no one will apply for the
unappropriated shares. Dissolution alone is imminent," cries the
distracted editor.
It was certainly becoming apparent that this was no time for further
dallying. The Shrewsbury and Welshpool undertaking, it was reported, was
enlisting "an amount of public interest and support seldom equalled in
the history of railways," and early in 1856 the directors of the Oswestry
and Newtown line found it expedient to assure the community that
"preparations for letting the contract were in active progress" and the
first sod was to be cut on April 11th. Alas for the optimism of eager
pioneers and the credulity of an impatient public! April 11th came and
proved nothing else than a slightly belated "All Fools Day"! No sod was
cut. Not a spade or a barrow was visible, and the operation might, by
all appearances be postponed till the Greek Kalends. Patience, already
sorely tried, became utterly exhausted. In June the Shrewsbury and
Welshpool Railway Bill was read a third time in the House of Commons, and
thus the rival scheme loomed still larger upon the horizon. Men had yet
to learn that railways could be co-operative as well as competitive.
But so fully, indeed, was the popular mind at that time obsessed with the
rivalry of routes that a rumour was started imputing to the directors of
the Oswestry and Newtown Company the intention of "disuniting the line
between Oswestry and Welshpool." As if there were not disunion enough
already! More genial humorists launched the story that the Prince of
Wales was coming down expressly to cut the first sod and had ordered a
new pair of "navvys" for the occasion to be made by a Welshpool
bootmaker. Feeling, however, was rising again, which was not moderated
by the apologia of the directorate suggestive that it was all due to
differences between them and the engineers. The engineers themselves
were more or less at variance, and, in April 1856, Mr. Barlow, the chief,
finding it impossible to agree with his assistant, Mr. Piercy, resigned.
Matters had come to so critical a juncture that eventually, by some happy
inspiration, a "committee of investigation" was appointed to examine "the
affairs, position and financial state of the Company." The Rev. C. T. C.
Luxmoore was elected to preside at this inquiry with Mr. Peploe
Cartwright of Oswestry as his deputy, and they issued a voluminous report
containing a series of recommendations, of which one of the most
interesting is that, to reduce expenditure, the earthworks should be
limited to a single line, "in all other respects making preparations for
a double line." That, as travellers over the Cambrian to-day are aware,
save for the length between Oswestry and Llanymynech, and between
Buttington and Welshpool on the Oswestry and Newtown section, was
eventually the course adopted. Bridges, including those over the Vyrnwy
at Llanymynech, and the Severn at Pool Quay, were built with an extra
span for a second pair of rails, but the girders still remain without
further completion. The directors did not escape pointed reference to
their "heavy responsibilities," but there was at least the "consolitary
fact" that, despite enormous expenditure already incurred, "provided the
arrears of deposit, calls and interest are paid up, a sum of 60,000
pounds over and above the Parliamentary deposit of 18,000 pounds invested
in the hands of the Accountant-General, will be at once available for the
works, an amount little short of sufficient to form half the line," and
the shareholders are urged, "manfully confronting the difficulties that
present themselves" to "merge all local jealousies and differences of
opinion, in a hearty and unanimous effort to carry out the works."
It is a long and tortuous story and well may a journalist of those days,
bemoan the perplexity of the local historian "when he turns over the
files of the various newspapers, to see in one number the praises of
certain gentlemen sung by admiring editors and enthusiastic
correspondents, and in the next frantic outbursts from distracted
shareholders against the devoted heads of the same gentlemen, who, but
one short week before were the admired of all the shareholding admirers.
One week he would find a noble lord wafted to the skies on the breath of
a public meeting, but in the next 'the breath thus vainly spent' would
blow his lordship up in a very different fashion, and those whose cheers
had wafted my lord to that elevated position, would fain keep him there,
so that sublunary affairs as far as regarded railways, would be out of
his reach. Then he would find another gentleman on the directory, one
day the idol and leading speaker of every meeting, called on the next a
'strife-engendering-judge,' and his place filled by another on the board.
Presto! and this same gentleman, again turns up trumps! A professional
gentleman is the pet of the whole company, but speedily a woe is
pronounced upon lawyers. Again the wheel turns round, and the
solicitor's great exertions and painstaking attention to the interests of
the line are acknowledged." {34}
"Our historian would next discover 'much talkee' (as John Chinaman would
say) anent a certain, or rather uncertain, 'blighting influence' which
arrested the progress of some of the works, and to get to the bottom of
which a 'committee of investigation' was appointed. He would open his
eyes when he saw the revelations made by that committee, and would wonder
how in the name of fortune--or misfortune--the shareholders could be such
'geese' (to apply a term used by one of the best directors the line ever
had) as to allow affairs to go on as they had done. He would find that
committee triumphant in the praises of the people, but snubbed by another
committee who conducted the ceremony of cutting a first sod that would
not have been cut this century but for them. When the investigation
committee's work was ended (but not finished!) he would find rival
claimants for honour:--Mr. Soandso here, Mr. Whatshisname there, and
other gentlemen elsewhere discovering that they were the 'saviours of the
line'--'unravellers of the mystery' while the line was yet in jeopardy,
and the mystery as dark as Erebus. He would then go on to disputes with
contractors and engineers, a law suit commenced here, and threatened
there,--directors retiring, and shareholders well-nigh at their wits end.
Lawyers are again at a 'Premium' and three are appointed to lay their
heads together in order to make heads of agreement, for the guidance of
new contractors, while the old ones, who the shareholders were afraid
would sack the company, were themselves sacked!"
That, indeed, is the usual fate of those who attempt to follow dead
controversies through their never-ending labyrinths. A sentimental
historian has said that "the world is full of the odour of faded
violets"; but, in looking back over these yellow pages of the past, the
scent which greets us is sometimes hardly as fragrant; and were it not
for purposes of comprehensive record, many of these acrid, but not
unamusing, incidents might be decently left buried in oblivion. Happily,
however, even the battle of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway was not
eternal. The day dawned on which it was gleefully acclaimed that the
directors had at length "caught the spirit of promptitude from the
committee" and before long "it might be expected to see hundreds of
navvies engaged in cutting up the earth." Storm clouds might re-gather
later, as we shall see, but for the time being peace was restored.
Differences as to policy and even as to the site of the sod cutting were
sufficiently composed by the summer of 1857 to admit of a start being
made with the work of construction, and on Tuesday, August 4th, the
initial ceremony, performed by Lady Williams Wynn, took place, in a field
on the east side and adjoining the bowling green at Welshpool. The spot
bears no mark to-day, as it might well do, but it may be mentioned that
it is between the rails on the down line, as you enter Welshpool station
from Buttington, just opposite the signal box. There were, needless to
say, great public rejoicings. The long delay in getting to the actual
stage of operations gave additional zest to the popular acclaim when that
point had, at last, been really reached, and the proceedings were of the
most effective and striking character. Crowds flocked in from all sides.
Montgomery shared fully in the popular acclamation, and only Oswestry,
among the interested towns, stood somewhat aloof. The question of
"priority," apparently, still rankled, and "some misunderstanding" spoilt
the effect of what was intended to be a general business holiday. "Only
two or three shops were closed, while the others remained open as usual,"
and some of the more prominent Oswestry shareholders were conspicuous by
their absence at the ceremony, at which no reference was made to the
expediting influence of the "committee of investigation."
[Picture: Sod cutting ceremony of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway, at
Welshpool, on August 4th, 1857]
But in Welshpool the streets were bright with bunting. At noon shops
were closed in order that everyone might participate in the ceremonial.
Bells pealed from the Church tower; cannon, "captured at Seringapatam by
the great Lord Clive" were fired from Powys Castle, and a committee,
headed by the Mayor (Mr. Owen, grandfather of Mr. Robert Owen of Broad
Street), who had taken an active interest in the promotion of both the
Oswestry and Shrewsbury lines, assisted by the Town Clerk, carried the
day's programme through in triumph, which included the inevitable
"procession."
A contemporary record may here supply us with the necessary
details:--"The Procession began to form in the Powis Castle Park. After
some little delay it proceeded towards the Bowling Green, in the
following order:--
Two Marshals, on Horseback.
A body of the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry Cavalry dismounted.
The Band.
The Mayor and High Sheriff.
Aldermen and Town Councillors of the Borough of Welshpool.
The wheel-barrow to be used by Lady Williams Wynn, in performing the
ceremony.
The Directors of the Company.
The Officials.
Shareholders and Well-wishers.
Band of the Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles.
School Children,--including the National School, Infant Girl and Boys'
School and others.
Flags.
The First Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
The Second Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
Third Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
Cambrian Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
A small body of the Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles.
"This possession extended to a very considerable length, and was followed
by an immense concourse of pleasure-seekers and others who had come to
the town for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony.
"The body of Yeomanry Cavalry were selected by Sergeant-Major Turner, as
a body-guard for Lady Wynn during the ceremony, and being in full dress
presented a very creditable appearance.
THE CEREMONY.
"At about one o'clock the procession arrived at the spot where the
ceremony was to be performed. This, we have stated before, was on the
east side of the Bowling Green, on the part of the mound on that side of
the green facing the spot, seats were placed which were occupied by
anxious and eager spectators.
"After the procession had been properly arranged around the spot, the
ceremony was at once proceeded with," not the least impressive item in it
being the solemn invocation by Archdeacon Clive that "God would bless the
undertaking in the name of His Son Jesus Christ." The Mayor then
presented Lady Wynn with a copy of the programme of the day's proceedings
printed in gold letters on blue silk; Mrs. Owen of Glansevern read a
learned address dipping deep in the classical history of transport, "the
first sod was then cut by Lady Wynn, with the silver spade placed in the
wheelbarrow provided by the contractor, and wheeled by her along the
planks laid on the ground, in a very graceful manner. Her ladyship
performed the ceremony amidst the deafening applause of the assembled
multitude. Afterwards other ladies and gentlemen, including the
directors, contractors, engineers, etc., went through the same ceremony,
using a common wheelbarrow.
"The wheelbarrow, made of mahogany, was emblazoned with the seal of the
company, while on the silver spade was engraved the following:--
"Presented to Lady Watkin Williams Wynn, by the Contractor of the
Oswestry and Newtown Railway, on the occasion of turning the first
sod, at Welchpool, on Tuesday, the 4th of August, 1857."
"Under the inscription was a copy of the seal of the company."
Subsequently a "cold collation" was provided in a tent on the Bowling
Green; there was a prolific toasting of everybody, or nearly everybody
concerned, and what was felt to be one of the most auspicious days in the
annals of Powysland closed with rural sports and dancing. That night the
shareholders dreamt of prodigious dividends.
CHAPTER IV. OSWESTRY TO NEWTOWN.
"_But a child_,
_Yet in a go-cart. Patience; give it time_
_There is a hand that guides_.
--BENNETT COLL.
It is easy to-day to smile at the optimism of our grand-fathers. We know
now that railway dividends are not as readily earned in real life as they
sometimes are in dreams which follow gorgeous banquets; but, in one
respect, at any rate, the future of the Oswestry and Newtown undertaking
appeared to justify jubilation. Axes had been, at any rate, temporarily
buried; the advocates of rival routes had composed their differences and
everything pointed to a rapid consummation of the scheme. As a matter of
fact, little delay was experienced in getting to work with the actual
construction. Before October opened gangs of labourers were busy on the
track between Pant and Llandysilio. The original idea of a broad gauge
line, similar to that adopted by Brunel on the Great Western's southern
arm, had been abandoned in favour of what has since become the standard
one for this country of 4ft. 8.5 ins. {40}
Nevertheless, it was no small undertaking. The Vyrnwy had to be crossed
at Llanymynech and the Severn at Pool Quay and again near Buttington.
The rest of the line was comparatively free from serious engineering
problems, but fresh Parliamentary powers had to be obtained to construct
a branch from Llynclys to the Porthywaen lime quarries, and even a little
addition of this sort involved endless correspondence over details and
other wearing worries. Difficulties of another sort, more formidable,
began to appear. The Earl of Powis, whose influence counted for so much,
expressing regret for certain differences which had arisen in relation to
the policy of the Board, wrote to Sir Watkin resigning his seat, adding
the warning note, "I think you should for your own sake watch somewhat
jealously the proceedings with regard to the contract." Sir Watkin
hastened to assure his lordship of the "grief and astonishment" which his
withdrawal had occasioned his colleagues and to deprecate divisions at
critical hours.
And it certainly was a critical hour. Money was urgently wanted,
borrowing was barred until provisions of the Act were complied with, and
though an attempt by Mr. Barlow to seek an injunction in Chancery failed
after a hard struggle, the contract had to be dissolved in order to
substitute an arrangement by which payment could be made by shares and
debentures in lieu of cash. It was on this account that Messrs. Davidson
and Oughterson, who had earlier succeeded Messrs. Thornton and McCormick,
in turn gave place to the men who had already come to the rescue of the
Newtown and Llanidloes undertaking.
The arrangements by which these early undertakings were "leased" to the
contractors has been the subject of controversy among railway financial
experts, but they were stoutly defended in a letter to the "Times"
shortly after the completion of most of them by Mr. David Davies himself,
who claimed that by this means "Wales had the benefit of something like
700 miles of railway which would not have been made for at least another
century if we had waited for the localities to subscribe the necessary
funds." In the present case, at any rate, Mr. Savin's efforts at
financial re-establishment were the outcome of the suggestion of the
North Western, warmly supported by the Great Western party, including the
Chairman himself, who had become practically liable for 75,000 pounds, if
the railway was not made and the company set upon a sound footing. To
set free the powers of the Company no less than 45,000 pounds had to be
paid down, no small task with subscriptions to the share list not easy to
obtain. Yet, that Mr. Savin accomplished--and more. He bought up the
existing contract, compromised and settled all existing claims and got
rid of all liabilities. The rearrangement, however, took a great deal of
time, and was later complicated by the dissolution of partnership between
him and Mr. Davies, while the works were proceeding between Welshpool and
Newtown. Not until July 26th, 1861, was it finally arranged that Mr.
Savin should relinquish the lease, and work the line on an amended basis,
under which he was to take the earnings, pay 4.75 per cent. to the
Company, supplementing the earnings of the line by a draft upon the North
Western, who granted rebates. {42}
[Picture: From left to right: The late MR. JOHN WARD, Mr. T. Savin's
partner in the construction of several of the Cambrian Railways; The late
MR. JOHN SAVIN, who assisted his brother in the construction of the Welsh
Coast and other Railways]
Still, it considerably expedited construction. The works came into the
new hands in October 1859, and so far as the chief portions of the
undertaking went, progress became quite satisfactory. As is so often the
case, in these affairs, it was an unexpected development over a detail
that caused the greatest perturbation. Another difference arising on the
board, this time regarding certain engagements entered into about the
site of the station at Oswestry, Sir Watkin, who appears to have had
certain misgivings as to the conduct of the business, being out-voted at
a meeting of the directors, just before Mr. Savin came into possession of
the works, in his turn left the room and a few days later sent in his
resignation. He was replaced in the chair by Mr. David Pugh, M.P., of
Llanerchyddol Hall, Welshpool, who continued to act in that capacity
till, on his death in 1861, he was succeeded by Mr. Whalley.
On the line, however, the navvies went doggedly digging on, despite
atrocious weather. By May 1st, 1860, the track was sufficiently complete
from Oswestry to Pool Quay to be opened for traffic to that point, and
advertisements began to appear announcing "cheap trains" for
excursionists to the "far-famed and commanding heights of Llanymynech
Hills." In the middle of the month a more venturesome journey was
attempted and, by the grace of God, safely accomplished. The last link
in the iron road had just been laid, a mile or two from Welshpool, and
one fine evening, "shortly after six o'clock" (as a local journalist
records) "the 'Montgomery' was attached to a number of trucks, with rough
seats placed on them for the occasion. Every available space was filled
by a number of Poolonians who were in waiting. The train then slowly
proceeded along the beautiful valley of the Severn to the Cefn Junction
{43} (that is to be) with the Shrewsbury and Welshpool line, where more
trucks were attached, and a considerable addition to the passengers made.
Soon Welshpool was reached, and the shrill whistle of the engine--for the
first time heard in that beautiful locality--was all but overpowered by
the cheers of the assembled people. The train was brought to a
standstill on the very spot where, some years ago (we are afraid to say
how many) the first sod was cut. Congratulations were passed, and crowds
of the very old, and the very young, to whom an Engine heretofore had
been a figment of imagination, gazed with wonder at 'The Montgomery'
while their more travelled neighbours adjourned to the Bowling Green,
where Mr. R. Owen made a short pithy speech. He very properly
acknowledged the business-like activity of Messrs. Davies and Savin, to
whom the public were so largely indebted for the arrival of a locomotive
at Welshpool. Mr. Webb, on behalf of the contractors, suitably
responded; and the proceedings were cut short by a warning whistle from
the engine, on which sat Campbell, the locomotive superintendent, who
very prudently wished to get back over the rough road before the shades
of evening overtook them. The train then went off for Pool Quay at a
smart pace, considering that the rails were unballasted, and with the
trucks loaded with juveniles, many of whom perhaps had this day their
first trip by railway. In Welshpool the bells rang out merry peals, and
cannons were fired, and everything betokened the hilarity of the
inhabitants."
What the Board of Trade would say nowadays to a heavily-ladened train of
passengers being run at a "smart pace," or any other, over an
"unballasted" road, can be left to the reader's imagination!
Anyhow, the line being finally finished off to the last nut and bolt, was
soon approved of by the Government Inspector, Colonel Yolland; and
everything was ready for the formal opening on Tuesday, August 14th.
"The day (says a contemporary account) proved most auspicious. Early in
the morning the weather was very dull, but before the middle of the day
it cleared up, and turned out most bright and cheerful. At about a
quarter to eleven o'clock the Mayor and Corporation of Welshpool met at
the Town Hall, and from thence proceeded (headed by the Montgomeryshire
Yeomanry Band) to the Railway Station by eleven, in time for the train
that was to convey them, together with the directors, shareholders, and
general public to Oswestry.
"As may be readily supposed, a monster train was required for this
purpose, and an immense number of carriages were in readiness. After
some delay, the passengers took their seats, and the train started for
Oswestry. The Corporation were followed by the Montgomeryshire Militia
Band, and the 2nd Montgomeryshire Rifle Volunteers, who proceeded to
Oswestry by the same train.
"As the train proceeded on its course, and arrived at the various
stations, it was hailed with the most enthusiastic greetings from those
who assembled along the line as spectators on this occasion.
"The arrival of the train at Oswestry was made the signal for a general
discharge of artillery, such as is customarily used on these occasions,
and added to this was the discharge of a great number of fog-signals.
The bells of the Old Church, too, rang out their merriest peals. At the
Station an immense concourse of people had assembled, and the Welshpool
Corporation was received by the Mayor and Corporation of Oswestry, who
had been escorted to the Station by the Rifle Corps, headed by their
band. The Pool Corporation received a hearty greeting from their civic
brethren in Oswestry, and the Montgomeryshire Rifles formed in column
opposite the Oswestry Corps, and each presented arms, when the Oswestry
Band struck up "God save the Queen." They all then proceeded, in the
following order, to the Powis Hall:--
Banner. Banner.
Band and Members of the Oswestry Rifle Corps.
Band and Members of the 2nd Montgomeryshire Rifle Corps.
Band of the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry.
The Mayor and Corporation of Welshpool.
The Mayor and Corporation of Oswestry.
Tradesmen, Shareholders, etc.
Drum and Fife Band.
Navvies, etc.
"At the Town Hall the Corporation had most hospitably provided for their
refreshment. Punch and wine of the choicest and best descriptions were
abundantly supplied, under the management of Mr. Atkins, and Mrs.
Edwards, of the Queen's Head Hotel, Oswestry. The company present
included the Oswestry Corporation, the Welshpool Corporation, the
directors of the railway, the Second Montgomeryshire Volunteers, and the
Oswestry Volunteers."
The special train then returned to Welshpool, where Mrs. Owen of
Glansevern declared the line opened. Then the inevitable procession, and
the not less inevitable "cold collation" and speech making, and dancing.
Only one untoward incident marked the day. Owing to the crush to board
the returning train from Oswestry, the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry and
Montgomeryshire Militia bands got left behind, and the Oswestry Rifle
Corps musicians, who had been more successful in the scramble, had to do
all the blowing for their stranded comrades. But, it is recorded, they
blew with triple vigour, as well they might!
Oswestry was now, at long last, connected with Montgomeryshire, but there
were those who felt in no mood for rejoicing in that event. Among the
residents of the Severn Valley were those who, like the redoubtable Mr.
Weller "considered that the rail is unconstitootional and an inwader o'
privileges." They solemnly shook their heads and deplored the doom of
the mail-coach. What, they asked, was to become of Tustin? Tustin had
driven the mail coach from Shrewsbury every morning, summer and winter,
starting from the Post Office at 4 a.m., and covering the score of miles
to Welshpool in about two hours. To see him and his fine horses arrive
at the Royal Oak was a source of daily pride to Welshpolonians. "In the
summer mornings," says a writer in the "Licensing Victualler's Gazette"
in 1878, looking back upon those days, "there was always a number of
people up to see the mail arrive, and the cordial and cheery welcome
given to those passengers who alighted to partake of breakfast at the
hotel, by the buxom and genial landlady, Mrs. Whitehall, was a thing to
be remembered and talked about. She was the pink of what such a woman
should be, and the fame of her cuisine reached very far beyond the county
in which she lived." Later in the morning, the thirteen miles between
Welshpool and Newtown were done in little more than an hour. But "the
days of coaching were drawing to a close even in Wales; the iron horse
was slowly to elbow one coach and then another off the road, putting them
back as it were, nearer and nearer to the coast; until even Tustin and
his famous Aberystwyth mail had to succumb. But they made a gallant
fight of it, and died what we may call gamely." In recent years the
coach, or its modern counterpart, the charabanc and motor bus, have come
into something of their own again, and are providing, in turn, a new form
of competition with the railways.
In 1860, long distance highway traffic did seem doomed, for the "iron
horse" could cover the ground in what then appeared a prodigious pace.
Six trains ran each way between Oswestry and Welshpool on week-days and
two each way on Sundays, while excursion fares advertised in connection
with a Sunday School trip from Oswestry to Welshpool held out the
alluring advantage of "covered carriages, 1s.; first-class, 2s." for the
double journey--a figure to make the mouth of the present day passenger
water! It was hardly so necessary then, as it has proved to be on recent
occasions, to the writer's personal knowledge, for groups of mourners
travelling to a funeral to contrive to save a few pence by taking
"pleasure party" tickets!
But, as yet, no "pleasure" or any other party could proceed by rail
beyond Welshpool. Work on the remaining link, had begun; but at the
Newtown end, where arrangements had been entered into for a working
alliance with the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway. At the Welshpool end
circumstances were not so propitious. The original surveys had been made
by way of Berriew, but this necessitated carrying the line through part
of the Glansevern domain, and, as the late Earl of Powis had jocularly
remarked, in connection with the planning of a neighbouring line, the
_beau ideal_ of a railway is one that comes about a mile from one's own
house and passes through a neighbour's land.
[Picture: Kilkewydd Bridge, near Welshpool, as recently re-built.
Reproduced from the "Great Western Magazine."]
So it was to the other side of the valley that Mr. Piercy had, at length,
to carry his measuring instruments, and, crossing the Severn at
Kilkewydd, climb the long incline to Forden. Before this was finally
accomplished the dissolution of partnership between the contractors had
taken place, and while Mr. Davies transferred his attention to some
adjacent railway schemes, Mr. Savin took into partnership Mr. Ward of the
Donnett, Whittington, near Oswestry, and the name of "Savin and Ward"
was, for some years, to become as familiar in the railway world as had
previously been that of "Davies and Savin." The four mile stretch
between Newtown and Abermule was in working order and trains were running
over this isolated section of the Oswestry and Newtown system, but the
remaining gap between Abermule and Welshpool had still to receive its
finishing touches, when the term set in the agreement for completion
expired.
Mr. Savin was able to cite not only the "worst weather that anyone can
remember," but the procrastination over the arrangement and transfer of
the lease as ample justification for the delay in fulfilling the
engagement. Moreover, other matters were arising which tended to
distract the attention of the directors from any passing squabble as to
dates. The "overbearing leviathians" might have been quelled some years
earlier, but they had not been killed, and at the beginning of 1861,
movements were again afoot in North-Western circles to secure an
extension of the Minsterley branch to Montgomery, while under the
Bishop's Castle Railway Bill, which was going through the Committee of
the House of Lords, the London and North Western Railway, apparently
trading on the payment made to the Oswestry and Newtown Company for
access to Welshpool by way of Buttington, sought a further reciprocal
arrangement by which, if the Oswestry and Newtown availed themselves of
the powers to subscribe to, lease, or work the Bishop's Castle line, the
North Western was to obtain the right to run over the Oswestry and
Newtown metals into Newtown, the latter Company being given a _quid pro
quo_ in the shape of similar advantage over the Shrewsbury and Welshpool
line. It seemed an innocent enough proposal on the surface, but it did
not blind the astute Mr. Whalley to the danger of certain developments
favourable to North Western interests. The clause, as it happened, had
been inserted in the absence of any representatives of the Oswestry and
Newtown Company, and this objection was carried into the committee room.
For hours the arguments swayed to and fro. Numbers of witnesses,
including officials of the Oswestry and Newtown, gave evidence; and, in
the end, the anticipated compromise was affected, by withdrawals all
round. The Bishop's Castle Railway lost the support of the Oswestry and
Newtown, but the sinister designs of the North Western upon Newtown were
finally scotched, and the local Company, of which Mr. Robert B. Elwin was
now General Manager, and Mr. B. Tanner, who had not long succeeded Mr.
Hayward, on his resignation, in that capacity on the Llanidloes and
Newtown, secretary, could go forward with greater confidence.
On Monday, May 27th, the first train, drawn by the engine "Leighton," and
conveying a party of invited guests and the engineers, passed safely over
Kilkewydd bridge, amidst a fusillade of fog signals, and thus the last
and most formidable of the engineering exploits on the new length of line
was accomplished. The bridge had been constructed in remarkably short
time, and a contemporary record of this auspicious incident duly mentions
that "the speedy completion of so complicated and troublesome a task is
mainly due to the indefatigable exertions of Mr. John Ward, one of the
contractors, and Mr. James Marshall, the resident superintendent." Early
the next month Colonel Yolland inspected the whole length from Welshpool
to Newtown, pausing to express his special approbation of the Kilkewydd
bridge {51} as "the best constructed on the line," and it was now open to
the Company publicly to announce that from June 10th a through service of
trains would run from Oswestry to Newtown and on to Llanidloes.
No further formal opening seems to have been arranged, but, though the
day was, like so many that had so proceeded it, very wet, rapidly
organised celebrations took place at some spots. Montgomery had already
taken its share in the opening to Welshpool, but it was now to have a
festival of its own, as was only fitting, since that ancient borough may,
in no small sense, be regarded as one of the ancestral homes of the
"Cambrian." It was here, as we have seen, that Mr. Piercy had largely
acquired his interest and skill in railway engineering, while at the
office of Mr. Charles Mickleburgh. A committee, with Mr. W. Mickleburgh
as hon. secretary, and treasurer, had little difficulty in getting
together some 150 pounds as a celebration fund. A programme was as
quickly organised, including, of course, a procession and a dinner, but
to this was added another little ceremony,--the presentation by Mrs. Owen
of Glansevern, now a familiar central figure on these occasions, of a
silver bugle to Captain Johns and his gallant men of the Railway
Volunteers. The instrument bore the inscription,--"Presented by Anne
Warburton Owen, of Glansevern, to the Third Montgomeryshire (Railway)
Rifles, 1861." Above was an appropriate design, on the dexter side a
representation of the locomotive engine "Glansevern," and on the sinister
a railway viaduct with a train passing over.
The occasion was singularly appropriate, for no small part in the
initiation and maintenance of the Corps belongs to the little group of
railway men who were associated with Montgomery, the Mickleburghs, Mr.
George Owen, Mr. Piercy and others. In after years it was the habit of
their children to ask these gallant men whether they had "ever really
killed anyone" with their formidable swords, and some of them were wont
to answer that, perhaps not, but they had taken their part in the "battle
of Aberystwyth," a somewhat mysterious affair among the plum stalls in
the market-place, possibly still remembered by men well advanced in
years. In any case, we may be quite sure they would have acquitted
themselves worthily if called upon, and they did indeed provide an
inspiring note to all such ceremonial festivities. On this auspicious
day of the opening of the line, to Mr. Ashford, the trumpeter of the
Corps, fell the honour of sounding the first blast, and amidst the cheers
of the countryside, some 600 ladies and gentlemen fell to dancing "to the
music of the Montgomeryshire Yeomanry and Militia Bands, and the capital
band of the Welshpool Cadet Corps, composed of the young gentlemen of Mr.
Browne's academy."
And so, at long last, trains were to run through from Oswestry to
Llanidloes. Six left Oswestry every weekday, the first timed to depart
at 7 a.m., passing all the intermediate stations (including Arddleen, now
added to the original five) to Welshpool without a stop, though this
"express" was taken off the daily list some months later, and only ran on
fair days. Four trains made the reverse journey from Llanidloes to
Oswestry; while two trains ran each way on Sundays--a more generous
service even than that afforded to-day! The Cambrian, as someone said,
might still be a child, but it was a rapidly growing child. The guiding
hand was at work, and additional limbs were shaping themselves, both at
the Newtown and Oswestry end of the system, with such rapidity that we
can best deal with them one by one.
[Picture: The late MR. WILLIAM MICKLEBURGH, in the uniform of the
Montgomeryshire Railway Volunteers; The late CAPT. R. G. JEBB, of
Ellesmere, a prominent promoter of the Oswestry and Whitchurch Railway
and one of the first passengers to travel on the line]
CHAPTER V. FROM THE SEVERN TO THE SEA.
"_Wales is a land of mountains. Its mountains explain its isolation
and its love of independence; they explain its internal divisions;
they have determined, throughout its history, what the direction and
method of its progress were to be_."--THE LATE SIR O. M. EDWARDS.
I.
So far the lines already opened or under construction only traversed the
valley of the Severn. It was now proposed to penetrate the uplands which
lie between the banks of Sabrina and the shores of Cardigan Bay. It was
a somewhat formidable undertaking. "The mountains of Carno," wrote the
philosophic Pennant, "like the mountains of Gilboa, were celebrated for
the fall of the mighty." On their steep slopes, in 1077 Gruffydd ab
Cynan and Trahaiarn ab Caradoc had wrestled for the sovereignty of North
Wales. Across their shoulders, some four centuries later, had marched
the English troops of Henry IV. to their camp near Machynlleth, in a vain
effort to subjugate the redoubtable Welsh chieftain, Owain Glyndwr. Now
the mighty heads of the mountains were, at last, to shake and submit to
the incursion of another invader, more insistent and more powerful than
any that had gone before, and a Montgomeryshire engineer and contractor
were to conquer where an English King had failed. In one respect only
was their experience akin. Henry's army had become dissolved by the
continuance of bad weather which gave them all cold feet. The rain, that
falls alike upon the just and unjust, was to hamper Mr. David Davies's
army of navvies, but never to deter them from reaching and abiding at
Machynlleth.
In the initial stages of the new invasion all went well. So rapidly were
the Parliamentary preliminaries negotiated that, on July 27th, 1857,
while the promoters of the neighbouring Oswestry and Newtown Railway were
still wrangling over their internecine rivalries, Royal Assent was given
to the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway Bill, authorising the Company to
raise a capital of 150,000 pounds in 10 pound shares and loans to the
extent of 50,000 pounds. The total length of the proposed line was 22.5
miles and the works were to be completed within five years.
A month later the first ordinary meeting of the Company was held at
Machynlleth. Sir Watkin presided over a most harmonious gathering, in
striking contrast to some of the meetings which had assembled further
east, and the directors in their report, read by Mr. D. Howell, who was
to act as secretary until the amalgamation of the company in the Cambrian
Railways in 1864, had little to say beyond offering congratulations to
the shareholders on the speedy passing of their measure through
Parliament. The report seems to have been adopted without comment, and
the only other business was to appoint the board,--Earl Vane, Sir Watkin
Williams Wynn, Mr. R. D. Jones, Mr. C. T. Thurston, Mr. J. Foulkes,
Aberdovey, and Mr. L. Ruck. {54}
In a little over twelve months from that date the Company were in a
position to begin operations. The contract had been let to Messrs.
Davies and Savin (Mr. Benjamin Piercy again acting as engineer), and at
the end of November, 1858, the first sod of the new link in the extended
chain was turned amidst great popular rejoicings. So speedy had been the
preparations that no time availed to procure a more ornamental implement,
and the Countess Vane had to use an ordinary iron shovel for the purpose!
A contemporary record gives the following account:--
"The Cutting of the First Sod was very properly fixed to take place at
Machynlleth, not only out of compliment to the noble Earl and Countess
Vane, but also to increase the interest of the inhabitants of this
locality in the undertaking. The morning was ushered in by the bells of
the parish church ringing out most musically, the firing of cannon, and
similar demonstrations of good-will; and although in the early part of
the morning the rain fell heavily, yet towards the time fixed for the
proceedings to commence, bright Sol shone cheerfully over the beautiful
hills and valleys of Montgomeryshire, and made everything look cheerful,
as befitted the occasion. Two o'clock was the time fixed for cutting the
first sod, but previously to this time a large procession was formed at
the Town Hall, and proceeded to the ground in the following order:--
Band.
The Directors.
Flags and Banners.
The Demonstration Committee.
Flags and Banners.
The Shareholders, Visitors, and Well-wishers of the Company.
Contractors and Persons bearing the Barrow and Spade.
Flags and Banners.
The Children of the National and Vane Infant Schools.
Flags and Banners.
Band.
Miners and Quarrymen, headed by their Captains, all wearing Sashes.
Band.
First Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
Second Friendly Society.
Flags and Banners.
"On their arrival at the Schools the procession passed under a
well-formed archway of evergreens and flowers, very massive in structure,
over which were the mottoes,--'Success to the Newtown and Machynlleth
Railway,' and 'Commercial and Agricultural prosperity.' At the entrance
to the ground was another archway erected, over which was the
motto--'Peace and Prosperity.' On reaching the spot where the ceremony
was appointed to take place a large enclosure was railed out, at one end
of which was a pavilion for the accommodation of the ladies, which was
well filled. The parties had not long taken their allotted places before
Lady Vane came upon the ground, and was welcomed in a way that must have
been very gratifying to her, indeed it could not have been otherwise, for
it is generally admitted that a kinder-hearted lady does not exist in the
Principality, and she is most highly and deservedly popular, and well may
Earl Vane be proud of possessing such a wife. She was accompanied by
Lord Vane, and the young family, who appeared all thoroughly to enjoy the
occasion."
[Picture: The late EARL OF POWIS, a prominent supporter of some of the
earlier Montgomeryshire Railway Schemes; The late MR. DAVID HOWELL,
Secretary to the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway Co. from its
inauguration till its amalgamation in the consolidated Cambrian Railways
Co. in 1864]
After speeches by Lord and Lady Vane, her ladyship "having put on a pair
of gauntlets, which were presented by the Committee of Management,
proceeded to cut the first sod, which, having been deposited in the
barrow presented by Messrs. Davies and Savin, the contractors, was
wheeled to the end of the plank, after which Mrs. E. D. Jones, of
Trafeign, performed the same ceremony, and was followed by Lord Seaham,
and the other junior olive branches of the family. The bands played in
their best style, and the cheering was most deafening, and thus ended
this portion of the day's proceedings."
The subsequent proceedings were of a highly convivial nature, as befitted
so auspicious an occasion. There was a generous imbibing of "a bountiful
supply of Mr. Lloyd's prime port, sherry, etc.," and "a procession of
miners and quarrymen, more than 100 of whom dined at the house of Mrs.
Margaret Owen, the White Lion Inn, perhaps the most noted house in the
county for the excellence of its ale."
The work on this line was of a rather different nature to that on which
the contractors had been engaged on the Newtown and Llanidloes, and in
bringing the Oswestry and Newtown line to completion. Instead of
meandering, more or less, along river-side lowlands, the track had to be
carried uphill and down-dale over the shoulder of the Montgomeryshire
highlands, ascending to an altitude of 693 feet above sea level at
Talerddig top by a climb of 273 feet from Caersws, and running down again
by a 645 feet drop to the Dovey Valley at Machynlleth. This involved a
gradient, at one point, of as much as 1 in 52, and, just after leaving
the summit the line had to pierce through the hillside. A tunnel was
originally thought of, but abandoned in favour of a cutting through solid
rock to a depth of 120 feet. It was while excavations between the summit
and the cutting were being made that the engineers discovered a strange
geological formation, which, still observable from the train on the
left-hand side immediately after leaving Talerddig station for
Llanbrynmair, has come to be popularly known as "the natural arch." The
work of excavating the cutting was no child's play. But it proved a
profitable part of the contract, and it seems to have furnished not only
enough stone for many of the adjacent railway works, but, according to
popular rumour, the foundation of Mr. David Davies's vast fortune.
Seeking an investment for the money he made out of it, it is said, Mr.
Davies turned his thoughts to coal and in the rich mineral district of
the Rhondda Valley it was sunk, rapidly to fructify, and to form the
basis of that great industrial organisation the Ocean Collieries, famed
throughout this country and wherever coal is used for navigation.
[Picture: Talerddig Cutting. Reproduced from the "Great Western
Magazine."]
For Mr. Davies was now left to finish the Newtown and Machynlleth line
alone. While he was obtaining stone--and gold--out of Talerddig, his
former partner, Mr. Savin, had turned his attention to another link in
the chain between the Severn and the sea. In the end this arrangement,
although it seems to have led to some little feeling between the former
partners, which Mr. Whalley and others did their best to dispel, probably
expedited the completion of the through connection. At any rate, it did
not hinder progress among the hills. In this, the "long looked-for
arrival of the world-wide famed iron-horse," as an expansive journalistic
scribe put it, at Carno, was celebrated by rejoicings, and a dinner given
by Mr. David Davies to his foremen and a presentation by him of a purse
of 50 pounds to the "meritorious engine-driver, Mr. Richard Metcalfe."
Toasts were honoured, and Mr. Davies giving that of the evening,
expatiated at length on the virtues of the redoubtable "Richard." The
whole secret of the speed with which the railways he had constructed had
been accomplished rested in "Richard's" zeal and prowess. Though the sea
had covered their handiwork on the Vale of Clwyd railway half a dozen
times, "Richard" had stuck to his post, by day and night--"from two
o'clock on Monday morning till twelve o'clock on Saturday night, without
once going to bed." If they had made nineteen miles of the Oswestry and
Newtown track in thirteen months it was "in no small degree owing to
'Richard's' never-failing energy. He never grumbled, but always met me
with a pleasant smile." No wonder that Carno shouted its three times
three in "Richard's" honour and hardly less amazing that the good fellow,
on rising to reply, utterly broke down and could not complete a sentence
of his carefully prepared oration. "Never mind, 'Richard,'" exclaimed
Mr. David Howell, "that is more eloquent than a speech."
From Carno, Metcalfe and his engine were soon to proceed to make the
acquaintance of other friends and admirers further along the line.
Llanbrynmair was soon to be reached, and another writer in the local
Press is moved to compare its former remoteness, "verging close upon the
classic 'Ultima Thule' of the first Roman," with the new conditions.
"The railway," he says, "with its snorting, puffing and Vesuvian volumes
of clouds, now to a certain extent breaks upon the whilom monotony of
this valley among mountains; its aptly termed iron-horse (Mars-like, but
still in a placable mood) rolls majestically along, conveying the very
backbone of creation from the granite rock, ready trimmed, and requiring
but the cunning hand of the workman to fix the stones in their
appropriate place to span the meandering Jaen and Twymyn streams."
One of the bridges across the Twymyn, indeed, skilfully designed by Mr.
Piercy, with whom was associated Mr. George Owen, was a notable
structure. It consisted of three arches, its extreme height, 70 feet
above the rushing waters of this mountain torrent, the abutments being
large blocks of Talerddig stone and the arches turned in best Ruabon
brick. For, continues our chronicler, it was a highly satisfactory fact
for Welsh patriots to contemplate that Mr. Davies was "working his line
by means of Welsh materials, drawn from inexhaustible Welsh mountains,
his workmen are natives, the planning and workmanship is also native, and
he himself a thorough and spirited Welshman."
Less placable were some of the influences which began to exert themselves
further afield. The Board having set their hand to a proposed agreement
by which the Great Western Company undertook to work the line for 40 per
cent. of the gross earnings and an exchange of traffic arrangement, it
became the signal for raising again the old bogey of rival "interests."
An anonymous writer in the "Open Column" of the "Oswestry Advertizer,"
describing the Newtown and Machynlleth as "the worst managed railway in
the course of formation," warned Machynlleth against its impending doom.
It would mean a break of journey at Newtown, and, to avert this, the
North Western, once the personification of all unrighteousness, was now
transformed into the fairy godmother, who, by pressing forward its
co-operation with the Bishop's Castle, Mid-Wales and Manchester and
Milford undertakings, was urged to carry forward connecting links from
Llanidloes over the shoulder of Plynlimmon, as a competitive route to the
sea. The article attracted some attention at the next meeting of the
Newtown and Machynlleth shareholders, where the bargain with the Great
Western was warmly defended, both by Capt. R. D. Pryce, who presided, and
by Mr. David Davies, as the largest shareholder as well as contractor.
But the Oswestrian alarm was groundless. What looked a rosy prospect
from the Newtown and Machynlleth Company's point of view, had another
aspect, when it came to be more fully considered at Paddington, and, in
spite of repeated reminders, that Company failed to take the necessary
steps to secure its ratification by its shareholders, and the working
agreement for the new line was transferred to the Oswestry and Newtown,
who were already working the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway. The
incipient Cambrian, in fact, willy nilly, was now beginning to experience
the sensation which comes, sooner or later, to healthily expanding youth,
when it has to stand alone. Tumbles there might be ahead, but the day of
leading strings was finally left behind.
Two engines "of a powerful class" with 4ft. 6in. wheels, capable of
hauling 140 ton loads up 1/52 gradients at 15 miles an hour, accelerated
to 25 miles on the easier levels had been quoted for by Messrs. Sharp,
Stewart and Co., of the Atlas Works, Manchester, in 1861, at the cost of
2,445 pounds each, and by the end of 1862 the Company were fully equipped
to cope with the traffic of the district.
At the end of the first week of the new year (1863) the opening ceremony
took place. The engines, "Countess Vane" and "Talerddig," drew a train
of 1,500 passengers, who had marched in procession to the Machynlleth
Station, up the long incline, over the Talerddig summit and down to
Newtown and back. At the intermediate stations, Cemmes Road,
Llanbrynmair, Carno, Pontdolgoch and Caersws, it was hailed with
vociferous applause as it sped on its way, and as Newtown was approached
the travellers found themselves passing under triumphal arches, to the
clang of church bells and the blare of bands. On the leading engine rode
the young Marquis of Blandford playing "See the Conquering Here Comes" on
the cornet-a-piston, Mr. George Owen, Mr. Davies and Mr. Webb. Earl Vane
was in the train and received a public welcome at the station. Then the
inevitable speeches. The return train was still longer and took two
hours to reach Machynlleth, where the jubilations were renewed, and
Countess Vane, to whom Mr. Davies presented a silver spade in honour of
the previous ceremony of sod cutting, declared the line open. More
speeches, luncheon, toasts and processioning _ab lib_ and "so home."
The time, however, had come for a memorable parting. From the
consummation of this project Mr. David Davies's connection with the
Cambrian, as one of its contractors, was to cease. He had saved it from
early death, and guided the infant through its difficult teething time,
while at the same time he was employed in building other railways, which,
later, were to become closely linked with its fuller life. Among these
was the Mid-Wales, to become amalgamated with the Cambrian in 1904, the
Brecon and Merthyr, over four miles of whose metals, from Talyllyn
Junction to Brecon, Cambrian trains were from that date to run, and the
Manchester and Milford, which formed a junction with the Cambrian at
Aberystwyth. But so far as the Cambrian itself is concerned Mr. Davies's
future association was to be that of a director, an office, in its turn,
dramatically terminated amidst fresh thunder clouds which had not yet
appeared above the horizon.
II.
Mr. Savin, as we have seen, had, during these later stages of progress
with the making of the line from Newtown, been busily engaged still
nearer the coast. A company with an ambitious name and a not less
ambitious aim had been formed to build a railway from Aberystwyth to
Machynlleth and along the shores of Merionethshire to Portmadoc, the port
of shipment of the Festiniog slate traffic, and eventually to continue,
through Pwllheli to that wonderful prospective harbour, upon which the
eyes of railway promoters had already been turned without avail,
Porthdynlleyn, near Nevin. {63} Its close connection with the other
local undertakings is shown by the agreement under which the Oswestry and
Newtown was to subscribe 75,000 pounds, and the Newtown and Llanidloes
25,000 pounds by the creation of 5 per cent. preference stock, a sum
ultimately increased in the case of the former Company by another 100,000
pounds.
Borne on the wings of Mr. Whalley's eloquence, Aberystwyth, assembled in
public meeting, led by the Mayor, Mr. Robert Edwards, gave its
enthusiastic support to the scheme. This was followed by another
meeting, at which Mr. Piercy, as engineer, outlined the plan and bade the
inhabitants look forward to the day when the railway was to enable them
to compete with successful rivals on the North Wales Coast, and once more
justify for them the proud name of "the Brighton of Wales." Other
railway companies were inclined to be obstructive, but their opposition
was not altogether formidable, and when Mr. Abraham Howell appeared in
the role of mediator between conflicting interests, the way was soon
prepared for proceeding apace with the scheme. So harmonious, indeed,
had the atmosphere become that within less than two months of this
meeting the Company's Bill had received Royal Assent, almost a record,
surely, in those days of interminable controversy! Mr. Savin's project
was to begin by carrying the line, whence it linked up with the Newtown
and Machynlleth at the latter place, as far as Ynyslas. Here, at the
nearest point on the seaboard, the mists which hang over the great bogs
that stretch from the sand-dunes up to the foothills of Plynlimmon, took
fantastic shape in the eye of the ambitious contractor. He may,
perchance, have heard the story told of a man who owned a barren piece of
land bordering the seashore. A friend advised him to convert it to some
use. The owner replied that it would not grow grass, or produce corn,
was unfit for fruit trees, and could not even be converted into an
ornamental lake as the soil was too sandy to retain the water. "Then,"
said the friend, "why not make it a first-class watering place?" This,
at any rate, was the project on which Mr. Savin set his heart. But not
even first-class watering places can be built in a day, and the
contractor made a modest beginning with a row of lodging houses. Alas!
not for the last time, the parable of the man who built upon the sands
was to have its application to these Welsh coast undertakings. The
houses were no sooner finished than they began to sink, and some time
later they were pulled down and the material put to more hopeful and
profitable use.
[Picture: Latest Cambrian Passenger Express Engine]
Ynyslas remains to-day a lonely swamp, but somewhat better luck attended
the effort to carry the excursionist on to Borth. The line was pushed on
there, and an old farm house, on the outskirts of what was then nothing
but a tiny fishing village, was converted into a station. The following
July the line was open for traffic. Curiously enough, little public
interest seems to have been aroused in Borth itself by the event. The
inhabitants of the village were mainly engaged in seafaring, and the
arrival of the steam engine, in the opinion of some, boded no good. As
for English visitors--what use were they? The story, indeed, is told
that some four enterprising tourists, who had arrived ahead of the
railway, sought accommodation in vain in the village, and had perforce to
make the best of it in a contractor's railway wagon that stood on a
siding of the unfinished line. They cuddled up under a tarpaulin sheet
and settled down for the night, when someone gave the wagon a shove and
starting down an incline on the unballasted track it proceeded merrily on
its way to Ynyslas. Not so merry the affrighted and unwilling
passengers, who, when day broke, discovered themselves marooned in a
remote spot miles from anywhere productive of breakfast bacon and eggs!
But, if Borth itself looked on askance, Aberystwyth was ready enough to
acclaim the approach of the railway. The resort on the Rheidol had
already begun to attract visitors who completed the journey from
Llanidloes or Machynlleth by coach, and now there was the prospect, in
the early future, of the railway running into the town itself. So, very
early on the day when the first train was to steam into and out of Borth,
vehicles of all sorts crowded the road from Aberystwyth, the narrow
street of Borth was rapidly thronged with an excited multitude who flowed
over on the sands. At 8-30 a.m. the train left, with 100 excursionists.
It was followed by another at 1 p.m., for which 530 took tickets. There
was a great scramble for seats, and every one of the thirty coaches of
which the train was composed, was packed to the doors. Those who failed
to obtain a footing formed an avenue a mile long through which the train
moved out amidst tumultuous applause. In the carriages the passengers
shouted, talked, ate, drank and--sang hymns! The twelve miles to
Machynlleth took about twenty-five minutes to accomplish, and, arrived
there, the excursionists enjoyed themselves immensely, "as," says a
contemporary recorder, "Aberystwyth people generally manage to do when
from home at any rate."
Nor were the good folks of Aberystwyth peculiar in their joy. A
Shropshire newspaper published a leading article of a column and a half
descriptive of "six hours by the seaside for half-a-crown,"--the return
excursion fare from Shrewsbury and Oswestry, while Poolonians could
travel for a florin. The result was a mighty rush of trippers, not the
less attracted, possibly, by the additional announcement that the railway
company had thoughtfully opened a refreshment room at Borth station! So
great, indeed, was the press of traffic, that the company's servants
sometimes had considerable difficulty in coping with it. One day all the
tickets were exhausted, but the stationmaster at Carno, one Burke, an
Irishman, not to be beaten, booked some thirty or forty farm labourers
with "cattle tickets." The manager passed next day and remonstrated.
"Why, Burke," said he, "the men won't like your making beasts of them!"
"Och, yure honour," returned the stationmaster, "many of them made bastes
of themselves before they returned."
Indeed, the scenes at Borth on the arrival of these excursions were
occasionally almost indescribable. One scribe invokes the loan of the
pencil of Hogarth adequately to portray it. "From a cover of stones
close by springs an urchin lithe and swift; another and another, ten,
twelve or more, 'naked as unto earth they came,' and away in single file
across the beach into the sea. The vans move ponderously on, pushed by
mermen and mermaids, and out spring any quantity of live Hercules. Very
curious must be the sight, if one might judge by the crowds of
ladies--well women at any rate--and gentlemen around every group of
bathers. Boats are in great request and the ladies cling very lovingly
to the boatmen who, in return, hug them tightly as they embark or
disembark their fair freight. The very porpoises, gambling out there,
seem to enjoy the whole thing heartily and shake their fat sides at the
fun. Our friend with the hammer discourses learnedly about those long
ridges of hard rock which stand out over the Dovey Plain when, gracious
me! we look round and, will you believe it? There was a bevy of females
in a state of--shall I go on? No; but I will just say we saw them
waddling like ducks into the water. The porpoises were alarmed and
betook themselves off. And so did we. Had the bathers been black
instead of white we should have thought ourselves on the coast of Africa.
Such an Adam and Eve-ish state of things we never saw before. Well,
_honi soit qui mal y pense_."
Anyhow, thus did the six hours swiftly pass in those unregenerate days.
For Mr. Savin had yet to build his Borth hotel and lodging houses, which
to-day give welcome shelter to a very different throng of visitors,
summer after summer, attracted by the placid beauties and the
invigorating air of Cardigan Bay. It was, at worst, but a temporary
orgy, marking, as it were, a new epoch in the life of the Cambrian; whose
lengthening limbs now stretched from the Severn to the sea.
CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE OF ELLESMERE.
"_The question of a railway is now or never_."--THE LATE MR. R. G.
JEBB, of Ellesmere.
No period, since the wild days of the "railway mania," was more pregnant
of schemes than the later months of 1860. They sprang up like mushrooms
all along the Shropshire border, and some of them, like mushrooms, as
suddenly suffered decay. A facetious Salopian prophet ventured publicly
to predict that "we shall hear next of a railway to Llansilin (a remote
village among the border hills) or the moon." His ratiocination was
hardly exaggerated. A "preliminary prospectus" was actually published
for carrying a railway, at a cost of under 10,000 pounds per mile, from
Shrewsbury, through Kinnerley and Porthywaen, thence "near Llanfyllin and
Llanrhaiadr," to Llangynog, "through the Berwyn hills" to Llandrillo, and
so to Dolgelley and Portmadoc. It was to be worked and maintained by the
West Midland, Shrewsbury and Coast of Wales Railway Co.; the prospects of
mineral and passenger traffic were "most promising," and throughout its
entire length of 90 miles, the promoters pointed out with all the
emphasis which italics can afford, "it has _only one tunnel_, and that
slightly exceeding a mile and half in length." Eventually, a line,
partly following this route, under the less comprehensive title of the
West Shropshire Mineral Railway, and later known as "the Potteries,"
constructed from a station in Abbey Forgate, Shrewsbury, to Llanymynech,
and on to Nantmawr, with a branch from Kinnerley to Criggion, ran for a
time, then fell into abeyance and disrepair, and was in recent years
re-opened under the Light Railways Act as the Shropshire and
Montgomeryshire Railway, an independent company.
But, in its original form, the undertaking was apparently to be no
friendly competitor with the existing Oswestry and Newtown and associated
lines, whose ambition it had, for some time, been to extend its northern
terminus, resting on the Great Western branch at Oswestry, through
Ellesmere to Whitchurch, there to form a more serviceable junction with
the London and North Western from Shrewsbury to Crewe, and the busy hives
of Lancashire. But more formidable opposition was already afoot
elsewhere. The Great Western, none too eager, as we have seen, to assist
independent undertakings in Montgomeryshire, were ready enough to capture
traffic in other quarters, and their answer to the Oswestry and
Whitchurch project was to formulate a scheme for a branch from Rednal to
Ellesmere, with incidental hints about constructing a loop to place
Oswestry on their main line. Draughtsmen were busy everywhere with pens
and plans. Public halls echoed to the optimistic eloquence of promoters
and counter promoters, and powder and shot was being hurriedly got
together for the tremendous fusilade in the Parliamentary committee
rooms, where, for many a long day, there was to rage and sway the battle
for the rights and privileges of bringing the steam engine into the
little town of Ellesmere.
For, though wider schemes were involved in the struggle, Ellesmere was
the pivot on which arguments and contentions centred. In such a
conflict, needless to say, all the old rivalries of "leviathan"
interests, of which we have already heard so much, re-emerged. What was
still called the "Montgomeryshire party"--the men who had brought the
other local railways into existence in spite of well-nigh overwhelming
difficulties--continued to look for association with the North Western
for greater salvation. Others favoured the chance of obtaining increased
facilities for through traffic from the Great Western. Between the two
warring elements, Ellesmere itself, as one of its most estimable and
influential citizens had put it, believed it was "now or never" for them.
In the Parliamentary Committee Rooms, where the evidence occupied
thirteen days, and counsels' speeches several more, the two projects were
stubbornly fought out. Great Western witnesses came forward to aver
that, owing to the haste with which the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway
had been projected, Oswestry had been left too much in the lurch, and the
time was now come for reconsideration of its claims to be brought on to
the main line. Mr. Sergeant Wheeler, with all the command of forensic
eloquence, drew visions of the Shropshire market town as "a great central
place of meeting for the people all round." All that was necessary was
to build a line from Oswestry to Rednal, and then the projected branch
from Rednal to Ellesmere, and Rednal itself might become a second Rugby
or Crewe; who could tell? As to the continuation of such a line from
Ellesmere to Whitchurch, true, Paddington was not enthusiastic, but when
they found that that was the price demanded for any measure of local
support, they were ready to pay it.
In Oswestry there was, naturally enough, a general approval of any step
which would place the town on the Great Western main line, and no small
point was made of the fact that it would be better to have one station
than two. Moreover, Mr. R. J. Croxon. whose words were weighted with the
influence of a family solicitor, private banker and town clerk, was of
opinion that, apart from anything else, to carry a line, as Mr. Whalley
proposed, for two miles by the side of the turnpike to Whittington would
be "very dangerous to people driving along," and the attention of the
Trustees ought to be called to it. But, unfortunately for Mr. Croxon and
those who shared his fears in this regard, it was the business of the
local surveyor to examine the plans, and he was "engaged on the other
side." Thus even among Oswestrians was opinion divided between the rival
routes, and men like Alderman Thomas Minshall and Alderman Peploe
Cartwright, who had stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight for
independent interests in the making of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway,
were now inclined to regard each others' sympathies with some suspicion.
Further down the proposed line the weight was thrown rather more
decisively in favour of the Whalley scheme. Whitchurch had petitioned
against the Great Western proposals, though Captain Cust, who gave
evidence for the larger company, was moved to dismiss this effort as the
work of "Captain Clement Hill and lot of ragamuffins." Attempts were
even made to disparage the local undertaking by reference to Mr. Savin,
who had agreed to carry out the line on similar terms of lease already
adopted elsewhere, as a "haberdasher, not in a position to subscribe
millions towards railway projects." In Ellesmere the argument that the
Great Western scheme would bring the agricultural area into close touch
with the North Wales coalfields was quickly answered by the counter-plea
that the independent company could also build a branch from that spot to
Ruabon or Wrexham, and powers to that effect "would be applied for as
soon as what may be called the main line from Oswestry to Whitchurch was
carried." Even the larger landowners through whose estates the rival
engineers had marched with their instruments differed in their point of
approach. Sir John Kynaston, Bart., of Hardwicke, near Ellesmere, who,
as someone said, "if he had been left alone, was willing, like Marcus
Curtius, to sacrifice himself for the public good, was brought and
instructed to give evidence about embankments," one of which, on Mr.
Whalley's line, by the way, it was supposed (though in error) would shut
out his view of the Vale of Llangollen, and "destroy the happiness of his
existence for the remainder of his days." Sir John Hanmer, Bart., M.P.,
on the other hand, was inclined to become rhapsodic. He looked upon a
railway "as a fine work of art," which any painter might be glad to
include in his landscape--only, of course, it must not cut off a landed
proprietor from his woods and his other wild grounds, as the Great
Western scheme proposed to do, and against this he not only objected but
petitioned.
[Picture: The late CAPT. R. D. PRYCE, Chairman of the Cambrian Railways
Co., 1884-1886; The late HON. GEORGE T. KENYON, M.P., First Chairman of
the Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway Co.]
In the end the Committee declared the preamble of the Montgomeryshire
party, for their Oswestry, Ellesmere, and Whitchurch Railway to be
proved, and that of the Great Western not proved, though the Chairman
regretted to add that the finding was not unanimous. In the lobbies
rumour had it that it was, in fact, only arrived at by the casting vote
of that gentleman himself. Be that as it may, it sufficed. Once again
"independent" effort, astutely engineered, had triumphed over the
all-powerful interests of a great and wealthy company, and amongst those
who had hoped and feared and hoped again for the success of the Oswestry
Ellesmere and Whitchurch scheme enthusiasm knew no bounds.
In Ellesmere a great and excited crowd awaited news from London at the
Bridgewater Hotel. They watched for the omnibus from Gobowen, which it
was expected might bear the fateful tidings. But either the omnibus
failed to arrive, or, if it did, it had no intelligence to impart.
Shortly afterwards, however, a special messenger came post haste along
the road from Oswestry, and in a moment the news flashed through the
little town. "Victory"! An attempt was made to ring the bells, but the
churchwarden could not be found, and no one else had authority to pull
the ropes. So that the concourse fell back on the time-honoured
procession, and led by a drum and fife band, and headed by the Bailiffs,
the cheering throng paraded the streets while cannon booming from the
market place startled the countryside for a mile or more around.
Oswestry, assembled in public meeting, put to flight its town clerk's
gloomy prognostications with hilarious speeches, and outside the more
dignified civic circles popular demonstration took still more picturesque
form.
The return of a number of witnesses who had gone up to London to give
evidence against the local scheme and in support of the Great Western was
awaited at the Oswestry station by a hostile crowd. Some delay in their
arrival home was occasioned by an untoward incident even before they
finally left London. Seating themselves in a first-class compartment in
the rear of the train at Paddington, they waited at first patiently and
then impatiently for it to start. At last, unable to understand the
delay, one of them put out his head and asked a passing official when the
train was going. "It _has_ gone" was the laconic reply. The coach which
they had chosen was not attached to the rest of the train, and they were
not so meticulously careful about examining tickets on the Great Western
system as they are to-day. When the belated passengers did eventually
reach Oswestry, the crowd was still there. What was more, they had had
time to organise what was deemed a suitable reception. Among the
witnesses was a gentleman who, it appeared, had at one time been very
short of pence, and, it was alleged, had left his abode without paying
the rent. Somehow or another this little fact had been raked up and a
number of wags had cut the shape of a latch-key out of a sheet of tin.
As he alighted from the train this was dangled before him at the end of a
long pole, with a pendant inscription, "Who left the key under the door?"
The promoters of the new undertaking, of which Mr. George Lewis became
first secretary, with offices in Oswald Chambers, Oswestry, had every
reason for satisfaction. Royal assent was given to their Bill in August,
1861, authorising a capital of 150,000 pounds in 10 pound shares, with
50,000 pounds on loan, the work to be completed within five years. There
were, however, still tough battles to be waged over subsequent efforts to
obtain sanction for certain deviations and extensions, against which the
Great Western continued to fight tooth and nail with a counter-offensive
of their own. No fewer than three distinct schemes were now before the
public, with all sorts of loops and junctions at Rednal or Mile End, near
Whittington, and branches from Bettisfield to Wem, or to Yorton, and from
Ellesmere to Ruabon. But it is an easier task to draw plans on a map
than to carry them out. The Wem branch never matured, the link with
Denbighshire only after many years, and then to Wrexham and not Ruabon.
So far as the main issue was concerned, however, the Great Western again
failed to prove their preamble, and another signal was given for local
rejoicings over the result. Not only at Oswestry and Ellesmere and other
places along the route of the new line, but as far afield as Montgomery
and Llanfyllin, where a branch line of their own was being promoted to
Llanymynech, hats were thrown into the air and healths were drunk to the
victory for local enterprise. Oswestry parish church bells rang for two
days, and the Rifle Corps band blew itself dry outside the houses of Mr.
Savin, Mr. George Owen and others. Mr. Savin himself, returning from
London, during these proceedings, met "with a reception at Oswestry such
as no man ever received before." Carried shoulder high through the
streets of the town, accompanied by a surging throng of cheering
admirers, armed with torches, to the tune of "See the Conquering Hero
comes," he was addressed in congratulatory vein by several of his
fellow-citizens, and it was only when a first and second attempt to fly
from the embarrassment of so tumultuous a welcome had failed, that he
succeeded, on a third, in making his escape. The "small haberdasher,"
who had been deemed incapable of organising railway schemes, had indeed
become something very like a railway king!
But we are anticipating events. At the end of August, 1861, the first
sod had been cut at Ellesmere, where it was proposed to begin the
construction, proceeding first in the direction of Whitchurch. The
ceremony was performed by Sir John Hanmer and Mr. John Stanton, in a
field belonging to Mr. W. A. Provis, "not far from the workhouse," and a
spade and barrow, suitably inscribed, was presented to Sir John by
Messrs. Savin and Ward, the contractors. There was the usual ceremonial,
inclusive of banqueting and speech-making, and banners, emblazoned with
such appropriate mottoes as "Whalley for ever," "Hurrah for Sir John
Hanmer and John Stanton, Esquire," floated in the breeze. One ingenious
gentleman, elaborating the topical theme, had erected a flag which, we
are told, "attracted special attention from its significance and
quaintness," representing a donkey cart with two passengers on one side
and a steam engine and carriages on the other, to personify "Ellesmere of
yesterday," and "Ellesmere of to-day," with the philosophic addendum,
"Evil communications corrupt good manners," "Aye, says the preacher,
every valley shall be raised and every hill shall be brought low." "Aye,
says the teacher, let us bless the bridge that carries us safely over,"
"Aye, aye, quoth honest nature." The application to evil communications
might, in such a connection, be a little ambiguous, but presumably nobody
imagined it to refer to the Oswestry, Ellesmere and Whitchurch Railway!
The allusion to bridges was rather more germane; for, in building the
line towards Whitchurch, which was the first section taken in hand, the
engineers were faced with a bridging problem of a peculiar nature, and
only less in magnitude than that which had confronted the constructors of
the famous Liverpool and Manchester Railway thirty years earlier. Partly
in order to avoid interfering with Sir John Hanmer's property, and partly
because they deemed it the better way, the engineers decided to carry the
line over Whixall Moss, a wide area of bog land lying between Bettisfield
and Fenns Bank. This, it was supposed, might even be drained by making
the railway across its quivering surface, but hopes of this sort were not
to be realised, for it remains to-day a wild, but picturesque stretch of
heather and silver birches, where the peat-digger plies his trade with,
perhaps, as much profit as the farmer would in tilling it. But as to its
power to bear the weight of passing trains the engineers had little
doubt. The canal already crossed it, and though in making soundings the
surveyors once lost their 35 foot rod in the morass, this, was near the
canal bank, and it did not deter them in their efforts to discover a
means of securing the railway from similar disaster. The average depth
of the moss was found to be twelve feet, but there were areas where it
was only nine feet deep, and at most 17 feet, and when the bottom was
reached it was discovered to be sand.
So, proceeding merrily, Mr. George Owen first drained the site of the
line by means of deep side and lateral drains filled with brushwood and
grig. He then laid strong faggots three feet thick and from eight to
twelve feet long, and over these placed a framework of larch poles
extending the entire width of the rails. The poles were then interlaced
with branches of hazel and brushwood and upon this the sleepers and rails
were laid, the whole being ballasted with sand and other light material.
And, in the end it proved a triumph for courage and ingenuity. Though
there might be some slight oscillation, heavy trains have been running
over this interesting two or three mile stretch for many a long year
without the slightest mishap.
Not to be outdone by little Ellesmere, another "first sod" was turned at
Oswestry on September 4th, 1862, by Miss Kinchant of Park Hall, and Miss
Lloyd, daughter of the Mayor of the borough, on the Shelf Bank field,
hard by the existing terminus of the Oswestry and Newtown Railway, with
which the new line was to be connected. The streets were in gala dress,
and while the leading citizens fared sumptuously on the Wynnstay Arms
bowling green, and disported themselves at a "rural fete," tea was served
to "the poorer women of the town and neighbourhood." In addition to the
residents many came from Ellesmere in wagons drawn by a decorated
traction engine,--significant emblem of the new power which was shortly
to bring the two neighbouring and ever friendly places within a quarter
of an hour's distance of each other.
Work now went ahead on both sections of the line, under the personal
supervision of Messrs. Thomas and John Savin and Mr. John Ward, and by
the spring of 1863 the railway was ready for traffic over the eleven
miles between Ellesmere and Whitchurch. The honour of being the first
passengers to make the journey belongs, appropriately enough, to the late
Capt. Jebb and his company of Rifles, who, by courtesy of the
contractors, were driven to Whitchurch on April 20th, a few other friends
accompanying them. The official trial trip was made shortly after, in a
train drawn by "two heavy engines," the "Montgomery" and the "Hero," and
in crossing Whixall Moss, we are told, "the deflection was almost
inappreciable." Captain Tyler was now able to pass the line as entirely
satisfactory, and, early in the morning on the first Monday in May, a
little group of Ellesmerians assembled at their new station to witness
the first regular train leave for Whitchurch. No doubt their hearts
swelled with pride, but beyond the usual exhibition of such emotion as so
notable an event inspired, there was no public acclaim.
Another twelve months were to elapse before the remaining section, from
Ellesmere to Oswestry, was ready for traffic. In July 1864, however,
this link was forged, and the event synchronizing with the completion of
the work at the other end of the chain, from Borth to Aberystwyth, it
threw open the whole length of what was about to become, under the
Consolidation Act, the main line of the Cambrian Railways.
[Picture: Advertisement for the Ceremony of Cutting the First Sod]
CHAPTER VII. THE COAST SECTION.
"_When they saw the Crimean Campaign they seemed about to be engaged
in against the sea, he thought it had been very much to the advantage
of the Welsh Coast line, if, on the formation of the Board the
Directors had been put through a series of questions in early English
history, and if their engineer had been directed to report to them on
the maritime events of the reign of Canute_."--EDWARD, THIRD EARL OF
POWIS.
No Chapter in the story of the Cambrian is more intimately touched with
the spirit of romance, none more prolific of pathetic humour, than that
which concerns what is to-day termed the Coast Section. For the moment,
however, all was sunshine and success. The continuation of the line from
Borth to Aberystwyth was completed for traffic, as we have just seen, in
the summer of 1864, and on that auspicious day when trains began to run
through from Whitchurch to the new terminus on the banks of the Rheidol
the rejoicings in Aberystwyth were such as to eclipse even those who had
marked earlier stages of the construction of the various railways now
linked in one long chain. Indeed, the triumphal procession which made
its way to the coast was bent on more than one celebration. The day was
also to mark the opening of the hotel which Mr. Savin had built at Borth,
and when the train finally arrived at Aberystwyth at a quarter past three
it was accorded a civic welcome; the Mayor, Mr. Morgan, and Corporation
tendering to Messrs. Thomas and John Savin an address, in which thanks
were poured out upon these "benefactors" to the locality. A move was
then made to the promenade, where Mrs. Edwards drove the first pile in
the new pier, and, after much processioning, the great assembly sat down
at the Belle Vue Hotel for a banquet of which, surely, the like has never
been seen in the town since! Here his Worship, supported by Earl Vane,
Capt. E. L. Pryse, M.P., Mr. Thomas Barnes, M.P., Capt. R. D. Pryce, the
Contractors, Engineers, and many other ardent workers for or well-wishers
of the undertaking, presided over a flow of oratory, the report of which
occupied over five columns of the newspapers, and visions of a new
Aberystwyth swam before the eyes of the guests, wonderful and beatific!
Such, indeed, was the sumptuousness of the repast, and the wealth of
oratory, that it was eleven at night before the company could be
persuaded to take their places in the return train, and at three o'clock
the next morning a jovial party arrived home at Oswestry, tired and
sleepy, though happy and glorious.
But the "Crimean campaign" of girdling the coast of Merionethshire and
penetrating onward to the distant peninsula of Lleyn, which was part of
the Aberystwyth and Welsh Coast scheme, was yet only in its earlier
stages, and already the difficulties of the undertaking had had their
sobering effects. The original idea of Mr. Piercy was to build a huge
bridge from Ynyslas across the estuary of the Dovey to Aberdovey, whence
it was proposed to run a service of steam boats to Ireland. Work was
begun with seeking a foundation in the shifting sands. Men were engaged
with the boring rods, but they could only labour at low tide, and in the
long intervals when the water was high, adjacent hostelries afforded a
too attractive method of spending enforced leisure, so that often, it is
said, when the waters had receded enough to renew operations, some of the
borers were too bemused to know whether they were on the solid earth or
not. At any rate, no sure foundation could be found, either by Philip
drunk or by Philip sober, and it was reluctantly concluded that another
means of bridging the gulf must be sought.
Adopting the wise Tennysonian counsel, the promoters eventually decided
to "take the bend," and Parliamentary power was sought for this deviation
of the original scheme. It was opposed by the Great Western Railway as
inimical to their project of carrying a line from Bala to Barmouth and so
forming a connection with the Welsh Coast, and their antagonism was only
disposed of after a compromise had been made in the Parliamentary
Committee Room, by which the great company obtained power to build the
bridge themselves, if they wished, within ten years, and the tolls on the
deviation were to be charged only for the same distance as if the traffic
had been carried by the bridge. So the line was carried round to cross
the Dovey at a narrow point near Glandyfi and connect the coast line with
the other railway there.
Hence the existence of, perhaps, the most beautifully situated of all
railway stations, formerly called Glandovey Junction, but changed in
recent years to Dovey Junction to avoid confusion with the adjacent
Glandovey station, at the same time transformed into Glandyfi. Being
only intended for changing trains the station is peculiar in having no
exit, and the very few passengers who ever alight here for other purposes
than entering another train have, presumably to make their way as best
they can along the line. Another feature of this station is that its
buildings and adjuncts lie in three counties. The station itself is in
Montgomeryshire. The stationmaster's house, just over the river bridge
is in Merioneth, and from the signalbox the signalman works an up distant
signal which is planted in the soil of Cardiganshire!
But this connection only came later, in August 1867, when the six miles
of line from Aberdovey to the Junction was carried along the estuary
shore and through the four tunnels which, until the Mid-Wales Railway was
absorbed in 1904, remained the only ones on the whole system. For a
considerable time after the coast line was opened passengers were carried
from Aberdovey by ferry to Ynyslas. At high tide the boat could make for
the station, but when the water was low it berthed on the Cardiganshire
side, at a lower landing place, whence travellers and baggage proceeded
by a little branch into Ynyslas station.
The first sod on the Merionethshire side had been cut, in April 1862, by
Mrs. Foulkes of Aberdovey, on the Green near the Corbett Arms Hotel at
Towyn, without formal ceremony, but in the presence of Mr. Piercy and Mr.
Savin, and "a few scores of persons who cheered lustily." We may hope
that even this mild demonstration did something to hearten the promoters
in their herculean task. For several miles along the shore the line had
to be protected against the assault of the high tides that periodically
sweep Cardigan Bay, and it was soon only too evident that ordinary
ramparts were no sure buttress against Atlantic rollers. More than once
the permanent way was washed by the waves and engineer and contractor,
viewing the dismal wreckage, must have felt that noble references to the
moral of Canute, however pungent, were not altogether inapropos.
There were toilers at this work, however, who had never heard of the
Danish King and bode not of what the maritime history of England might
teach. To them the arrival of the first trial train on the banks of the
Dysynni was more pertinently an occasion for "celebration," and sixty
pounds being quickly collected for the purpose, and as quickly spent,
rumour has it that, alas! the festivities ended for some in a few
reflective hours, we may hope profitably, if not too comfortably, spent
in the local lock-up.
But even when the Dysynni had been safely bridged,--not without anxious
days when piles refused to become embedded in the shingly bed of the
river--the troubles of the constructors were far from concluded. Beyond
Llwyngwril, to which the line was opened for traffic in November,
1863,--the engines and coaches had been brought by barge across the Dovey
from Ynyslas--there lay a still more formidable barrier to rapid
progress. For the cliffs hereabouts, which, with their steep declivity
down to the rock-strewn shore, left scarcely a foothold for the wandering
mountain sheep, were enough to daunt the heart of any but the most
courageous and determined engineer. Here, again, the problem rose as to
whether they should be tunnelled or the line carried along their sloping
edge, supported by sea-walls, as was the high road above. But the high
road itself shaved the edge of the precipice so closely that, it is
related, in the old coaching days, many people preferred leaving the
vehicle at the top of the hill to swinging down such a slope. Eventually
choice fell on the latter alternative, sailors being employed to assist
in the work by reason of their greater experience on such seagirt ledges!
It was, indeed, a hazardous venture; for the extreme narrowness of the
ground to work upon, sometimes tapering away to practically no ground at
all, hampered the task at every step, and the difficulty of building a
track along which heavy trains could run at high speed was never quite
surmounted. Even to-day trains descending the 1 in 60 decline are
carefully regulated in speed, no bad arrangement, after all, since this
stretch of line commands, on a clear day, one of the finest peeps of the
whole charming panorama of scenery along the coast of North Wales.
But engineer and contractor had something better to do than admire the
view. Below them and beyond, even when Barmouth Junction was reached in
July, 1865, there lay another obstacle which could not be avoided by any
but the widest detour. Trains could, and were eventually carried around
the narrow neck of the Dovey; they must cross the estuary of the Mawddach
almost at its widest point in order to gain the Barmouth shore.
Meanwhile, the line was carried along the southern bank of the river, by
what is now the Dolgelley branch, to Penmaenpool, and the public had to
remain content with such facilities as this localised service could
provide.
And a wonderful service it appears to have been! Old inhabitants still
tell tales of how goods trains would pull up at remote wayside spots
while driver and guard went trapping hares that made good prices in the
neighbouring markets, where no inconvenient questions were asked
concerning their capture. Or it might be that, now and again, a waggon
load of beer barrels was consigned to some village inn. It was then the
business of those in charge so to marshal the train that the "stuff" was
placed in convenient proximity to the engine, and, in the seclusion of
some cutting, a halt would be made for some mysterious reason. To
clamber over the tender into the adjacent waggon was a simple matter.
Still simpler, in expert hands, was the process of forcing up the hoop of
one of the barrels, tapping it and drawing it till the engine bucket
foamed alluringly, then plugging it up again, and drawing back the hoop
into its original position. On delivery the consignee might complain of
short weight, but that it was a question for the brewer and the company
to settle as best they could. None of the running staff knew anything
about it; and, as for the lateness of the train, well, was any train ever
punctual in those days, and who bothered about half an hour's delay?
Besides, there was something more important to bother about. Actions in
Chancery had begun to distract the attention of worried directors, and
these retarded progress with the construction of the line. So it was not
until June 1869 that the Cambrian continued beyond Penmaenpool, and, even
when Dolgelley was eventually approached, passengers had to alight at a
platform some little distance from the town. Only when the Great Western
Railway from Ruabon was completed did the trains from Barmouth Junction
run into Dolgelley station proper.
Many and difficult as were the engineering problems involved in the
construction of the coast line none aroused greater interest or put
scientific skill and courage to a severer test than that, to which we
have already briefly alluded, of carrying the railway over the sand and
river current into Barmouth. To the lay mind it appeared an almost
insuperable task, and there were those who did not hesitate to whisper
their doubts as to its practicability, one well-known local gentleman
being reported to have gone as far as publicly to undertake to eat the
first engine which ever crossed that formidable gulf. But engineers and
craftsmen set to work with a will, and before long what had appeared an
impossibility was rapidly taking shape as an actuality. Eight hundred
yards in length, the greater portion was constructed on timber piles,
over 500 in number, in 113 spans, driven into the sand. The navigable
channel, at the Barmouth end, was crossed by an iron-work construction,
of seven fixed and one opening span. The latter was of the drawbridge
type, and when lifted at one end by means of large screws was carried on
wheels and could be drawn back over the adjoining span.
It was a lengthy as well as a cumbersome operation, and when, in 1899,
the ironwork portion of the viaduct had become too weak for the
constantly increasing loads of developing traffic, it was completely
renewed with a modern steel structure of four spans, one of which was a
spring span, revolving on the centre pier and giving two clear openings.
The piers carrying the girders are formed of columns 8ft. in diameter
sunk through the sand down to solid rock, which was reached at a depth of
about 90 feet below high water mark. The columns are steel cylinders
filled with concrete, and were sunk into position by means of compressed
air on the diving bell principle, and owing to the depth below water at
high tide, the men excavating inside were finally working under a
pressure of three atmospheres, or 45 lbs. to the square inch. The
contractors were the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co. Ltd., of
Darlington. In 1906, and the following two or three years, the timber
portion of the viaduct was also completely renewed in the same material,
the contractor in this case being Mr. Abraham Williams of Aberdovey, who
had built, or helped to build, many of the old wooden bridges on the
coast line. The total cost of the renewals was approximately 60,000
pounds, and it is no small achievement that they were carried out without
a moment's stoppage in the traffic.
[Picture: Barmouth Bridge. Reproduced from the "Great Western
Magazine."]
But even the original viaduct, old-fashioned as it may seem now, was a
wonder in those days, and the fact that it carried (and still carries) a
footpath as well as the railway, provides Barmouth with a promenade
unrivalled in character and in range of panorama of river and mountains
and sea anywhere in this country. For a time before it was completely
finished a carriage was drawn over the bridge by horses, but in 1867 it
was opened for regular traffic, and in the first train which crossed it
into Barmouth rode the gentleman, who was under contract to make a meal
of the locomotive. If he had forgotten his rash undertaking, he was very
soon to receive a startling reminder. On safe arrival on the northern
shore, the story goes, he was politely escorted by an official to a table
laid for one, and was courteously requested to elect whether he would
have the engine roast or boiled. Alas! for the frailty of human nature,
more especially where a sense of humour might stand us in good stead.
The sceptic, disillusioned, is stated to have failed to appreciate the
joke!
Once the estuary was bridged, north of Barmouth, the constructional
problems were simpler of solution, and when the contractors reached
Minffordd, they were able to take advantage of an earlier engineering
enterprise, no less remarkable than any railway building. In former days
the sea had covered what is now called the Traeth, the broad valley of
the Glaslyn, stretching from the hillocks of Penrhyndeudraeth to
Moel-y-Gest, overlooking Portmadoc. The tides then surged several miles
up this vale, and washed the walls of Llanfrothen churchyard, while
vessels bore their freights almost up to Pont Aberglaslyn. In 1791 Mr.
Madocks, following the example of earlier builders of sea walls in the
district, purchased the Tan-yr-allt estate, and soon set to work to make
dry land of a large part of the ocean bed. He erected what, in the
locality, is commonly called a "cob," the great embankment which runs
across the mouth of the former estuary, shut out the sea and recaptured
4,500 acres from its rapacious maw. Behind the shelter of this
embankment (along the top of which the Festiniog Railway runs), the new
line was comparatively easily carried over the marshy ground, and no
greater gulf had to be bridged than the narrow channel in which the
river, flowing down from the bosom of Snowdon, some eight or nine miles
away, is now confined.
But there were other difficulties to be faced--difficulties not so easily
overcome as even mountain torrents and sandy estuaries. The hand of the
law was heavy upon the constructors, and even when the line was
practically ready for opening, so long a delay took place in settling
outstanding claims that the track became almost derelict. For these were
anxious days for railway promoters. The rosy promise of rich revenues
from remote Welsh lines failed to mature, and Mr. Savin, heavily weighted
with the immensity of his undertakings, and crushed by the costly
construction of his great hotels, sank under the burden. He faced his
financial embarrassments with characteristic pluck, but it was a dark
hour in the annals of British finance far beyond the boundaries of the
Principality, amidst which came the sensational failure of the Overend
and Gurney Bank, and, so far as the Welsh Coast Railway in particular was
concerned, the interminable legal wrangles not only cost money, but
postponed the hour at which the line could earn its keep.
Even under these adverse circumstances trains did occasionally run,
carrying pigs from Pwllheli, or a small load of coal or timber for some
outlying farmer or builder, or a passenger or two willing to take the
risk of an adventurous journey liable at any moment to be brought to a
sudden termination by the barriers of the bailiffs. But even bailiffs
are human; and at night, when they slept, or were turned away by subtle
hospitality at some neighbouring hostelry, journeys could be made,
dashing down from Portmadoc to Barmouth and back with all the
exhilaration of a secret expedition.
Eventually assistance came to the hard-pressed promoters, and the line
was officially opened for traffic from Barmouth to Pwllheli on October
10th, 1867. But the number of trains often depended on the state of the
exchequer, and sometimes quaint incidents would occur to break the
monotony of events. One driver arriving from Pwllheli at Portmadoc, in
the early days, discovering that there was no "staff" available to enable
him to proceed to Penrhyndeudraeth according to regulations, was in
considerable perplexity as to what to do, when an ingenious sub-official
bethought him of a scheme, and fetching an old carpenter's auger, wrapped
it round with paper, and thus armed by what perpetrated to be the badge
of authority to go forward, the driver blew his whistle and off the train
went on its hazardous way.
On another occasion an official of the line visiting one station master
on this section was startled, in reply to his cheery inquiry as to
whether all was well with him, to learn that "the only drawback was that
he had the devil in his parlour." On his exclamation of incredulous
alarm, the stationmaster said that he would show the official, if he
would come and see. Entering the station house with some trepidation, he
beheld in the middle of the parlour one of the iron fire-brackets, used
to prevent water troughs from freezing in cold weather, popularly known
among railway men as "devils." It seems that the builders had neglected
to put in a grate, and the poor man had had to fall back on this
diabolical method of keeping himself warm! The matter, no doubt, was
quickly righted, for stationmasters, even then, were important
functionaries, often wearing tall silk hats, though some of them were
regarded as passing rich on 15/- or 16/- a week.
It was something, however, that, in the face of all these difficulties,
financial and constructive, a line should be completed along this
wandering coast at all. Only in one respect, indeed, did the original
project fall short of attainment. The great objective of which the
shareholders heard so much in earlier days--Porth Dinlleyn--was never
reached. The line still terminates at Pwllheli, where, up to 1901, the
station lay at arm's length from the town close to the harbour, which, in
hot weather, used sometimes to alarm arriving visitors by its fishy
odours. In 1901 power was obtained to carry the line into the centre of
the town, where a new and commodious station now serves this popular
health resort, the gateway to the mysterious fastnesses of Lleyn.
CHAPTER VIII. SOME EARLIER BRANCHES.
"Y ddel gerbydres welir--yn rhedeg
Ar hyd ein dyffryn-dir,
Ac yn gynt ar ei hynt hir
Y fellten ni theithia filltir.
O ganol tre Llangynog--am naw
Cychwyn wneir yn dalog,
Fe'n ceir cyn tri'n fwy gwisgi na'r gog,
A hoenus yn Llundain enwog." {91}
--A WELSH BARD.
The traveller along the main artery of the Cambrian, from Whitchurch to
Aberystwyth, will note that, as he proceeds on his way, past the Welsh
border foothills, and on by the waters of the Severn to the highlands of
central Montgomeryshire, a series of more or less attractive lateral
valleys branch off to the left, and still more definitely, to the right.
Up some of these the eyes of ambitious engineers and railway promoters
had often been cast as the main line was being constructed. No less
eagerly did the residents at the remoter ends of these sequestered
hollows among the hills look forward to the day when they might be linked
up with the central system, and so brought into direct touch with the
great world beyond.
There had, as we have seen, already been plans for carrying a line right
up the Vyrnwy or the Tanat Valley, through the Berwyns to the vale of the
Dee--the wonderful West Midland line which was to run from Shrewsbury to
the shores of Cardigan Bay, over hill and down dale with "only one
tunnel." But the route left Llanfyllin eight miles to the south, and
Llanfyllin, as the largest town among these upland valleys, was not
disposed to take that lying down. The Oswestry and Newtown line crossed
the end of the vale, at Llanymynech, only nine miles away, and that was
clearly the route by which the engineers could most easily construct a
connective link. In the autumn of 1860, one of Llanfyllin's most
prominent citizens, Mr. J. Pugh, had posted over to Oswestry, where he
had an interview with Mr. Whalley. "Can you help us to get a railway?"
Yes, anything in his power, the hon. Member for Peterboro' would do, and
he was as good as his word. Within a month a crowded audience pressed
into the Llanfyllin Town Hall to listen to the scheme which Mr. Whalley
and his colleagues had to lay before them. The chair was taken by Mr. R.
M. Bonner Maurice, of Bodynfoel, who had, it was happily recalled,
presided at one of the meetings eight years earlier at Newtown out of
which the germ of the Montgomeryshire Railways sprang. This was, indeed,
good augury, and when, not only Mr. Whalley and Mr. Johns, with their
enthusiasm, but Mr. George Owen, with his plans in his pocket, came
before them to show how the thing could be done, at a cost of some 60,000
pounds, enthusiasm rose high.
The meeting, however, was not "like Bridgnorth election, all on one
side." Mr. A. C. Sheriff, of Worcester, manager of the West Midland
Railway, existent, so far, merely on paper, was there too, only he had no
plans in his pocket, and little more than vague notions in his head.
"If" they did make a second tunnel, out of the Tanat Valley, then
Llanfyllin should certainly be brought on to their main line, which would
carry the farmers straight into Shrewsbury market. The farmers, however,
did not want to go to Shrewsbury market. They wanted to go to Oswestry
and Welshpool, and it was by Llanymynech that their way lay. So it
scarcely needed Mr. Abraham Howell's warning to avoid the "shoals and
pitfalls" which threatened any deviation from the branch line scheme.
"Great companies," cried the redoubtable lawyer, "have been the bane of
Montgomeryshire," and Llanfyllin shouted back that they would have none
of them, whether they found they could tunnel out of the Tanat Valley or
not. Besides, "if" the West Midland could not put Llanfyllin on the main
line--and a very big "if" it seemed--then, Mr. Sheriff admitted, it would
not touch the town at all.
So, sweeping aside all "ifs" and "buts," Llanfyllin voted for the
Llanymynech branch. Whether it might be worked as an independent
undertaking or as part of the Oswestry and Newtown Company's concern,
mattered comparatively little. In either case, Mr. Savin was ready to
guarantee a dividend of 4.5 per cent., and Mr. Whalley had so much
confidence in the firm of contractors that he would back the guarantee
with his own name. Big companies should have no blighting and delaying
influence on their little valley. Like the other local companies to
which Mr. Howell alluded as examples of self-reliance, they would "trust
to their own exertions," and since, as somebody said, the Oswestry and
Newtown Railway was already a concrete fact, and no mere hypothetical
proposition, it was agreed to "join heart and hand" with the company. A
resolution to that effect was proposed by Mr. C. R. Jones, seconded by
Mr. John Jones--two names long intimately associated in close comradeship
with the public life of Llanfyllin--and carried unanimously; a similar
conclusion being arrived at at a meeting of "a few of the most
influential inhabitants of Llanymynech," with the Rev. J. Luxmoore,
Rector, in the chair, later in the day.
[Picture: Latest Cambrian Composite Bogey Coach, built for through
traffic between Aberystwyth and Manchester]
As to the rival West Midland scheme, like the ogre in the fairy tale
which ends happily ever afterwards, "little more was heard of it," at any
rate as a great through route from Shrewsbury to the sea. The project
was revived in the Parliamentary session of 1864, and a crowded meeting
at Llanrhaiadr gave it tumultuous blessing in speech and bardic effusion.
{94} But, though ultimately a line was constructed from Shrewsbury (as
we have shown in a previous chapter) it got no further than the Nantmawr
quarries, a few miles north-west of Llanymynech, and after running some
years, became derelict, until revived under the Light Railways Act as the
Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway. Not until 1904 did the Tanat
Valley itself echo to the sound of any sort of railway coach, "lightning"
or otherwise. Here again it was the Light Railways Act which made
construction possible. The Tanat Valley Light Railway Company was
formed, the directors being gentlemen interested in the locality, with
Alderman Charles E. Williams, of Oswestry, as Chairman. After some
controversy as to whether the line should be narrow guage, starting from
Oswestry and running along the Morda Valley through Llansilin, or an
ordinary guage extension of the mineral branch from Llynclys to
Porthywaen, via Llanyblodwel, the latter plan was adopted, and, under
pressure from the Earl of Bradford, a large local landowner, a connection
was also formed over the old Nantmawr mineral line to Llanymynech. The
railway which had its terminus at Llangynog has well served an important
quarrying and agricultural district, but it has never flourished
financially. For many years, indeed, the Company existed only in name,
and in 1921 it was formally absorbed in the Cambrian, which had worked
it, under agreement, from the outset.
But let us go back to the more successful enterprise in the neighbouring
valley. The middle of July 1863 saw the Llanfyllin branch ready for
traffic and on the seventeenth the opening ceremony took place. It
included an excursion to Borth in twenty-three carriages packed with
people, many of whom had never seen the sea. The train, we are told by a
contemporary chronicler, failed to keep time, but who cared? There were
some piquant scenes on the beach when the ladies, essaying to bathe,
found themselves closely surrounded by "gentlemen" in anchored boats, but
that, again, was a short-coming in the ordered programme which was
readily overlooked! Anyhow, it seems, a good many people managed to miss
the return train which "started punctually" at 1-30, arriving at
Llanfyllin at half-past five, and so they also missed the dinner,
presided over by the High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire, Mr. J. Dugdale, and
the speeches, with which the official proceedings closed. The next day,
following the precedent set at the opening of the Llanidloes and Newtown
Railway, Messrs. Savin and Ward entertained the navvies to a "good
substantial dinner" of their own, after which they, too, were entertained
to a flow of oratory from the "big wigs" of the railway company and the
locality, and another series of toasts were honoured with "three times
three."
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 procee
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