ers of charming scenery. By a subsequent Order, in 1898,
an extension of the line was authorised from Aberystwyth to Aberayron, as
a separate undertaking with a separate share capital, but this was never
attempted, and the Order subsequently expired, in 1904. Under the 1913
amalgamation Scheme the stocks of the Vale of Rheidol Company were
converted into Cambrian stock, and the line worked as part of that
company's system.

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

II.

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

During the time when Mr. Herbert Jones, who succeeded the late Mr. Wm.
Aston, was locomotive superintendent, {133} a large stride forward was
taken in this department. The engines now employed in hauling these long
and heavily-ladened tourist trains are mighty monsters compared with what
appeared "powerful" enough to travellers in the fifties and sixties.
Readers turning to the illustrations on another page may see at a glance
the difference between "then" and "now" both in the coaching and the
locomotive departments. Even the contrast between the engines as
originally constructed and as rebuilt is sufficient to impress the
interested traveller, but to these, in late years, have been added a
powerful class of passenger and goods engines, weighing, with the tender,
7