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 pla