ing 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