, 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 th