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

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

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

III.

But these are sorrowful records from which we gladly turn to the lighter
side of railway annals. As a link between them we may mention one
"accident" which happily unattended with very serious results in itself,
was the direct cause of a famous, and at the time, a sensa