The Story of the Cambrian

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It was, therefore, no startling departure, when in 1904, the Cambrian
sought Parliamentary powers, for which Royal Assent was granted on June
24th, to carry out its previous proposal to amalgamate with the Mid-Wales
Railway. This line, some 50 miles in length, which had been constructed
about the same time as the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway, and formed a
junction with that undertaking at the latter town, had all along been in
friendly co-operation with the Cambrian, but the change of company also
involved a change of carriages at Llanidloes with consequent delay. From
July 1st in that year Cambrian trains began to run through, down the
beautiful valley of the Upper Wye, connecting with the Midland system at
Three Cocks Junction and then from Talyllyn Junction, over the Brecon and
Merthyr Company's metals into Brecon, while on the financial side, stocks
and shares of the Mid-Wales were converted into stocks and shares of the
Cambrian, and the arrears of interest on the Mid-Wales "B" debenture
stock were capitalised into Cambrian "B" debenture stock.

The Mid-Wales like the Cambrian, had had a chequered early career.
Indeed, it might be said that its embarrassments began at the cutting of
the first sod, when Mr. Whalley, who was as ubiquitous as ever where
Welsh railways were concerned, permitted himself to make some remarks, in
his speech, disparaging Messrs. David Davies and Savin because he
disapproved their method of financing the line. Never before or since
has such a scene been witnessed on such an occasion! In vain did some of
the influential company present attempt to smooth things over. Mr.
Whalley was not to be easily downed, and amidst a chorus of "hisses,
whistles and pipes" he was heard declaring that he was a gentleman, a
member of Parliament and a magistrate, and "it was not his place to argue
with men like the contractors."

[Picture: Lieut.-Col. David Davies, M.P. Chairman 1911-1922]

But that was long ago, and by 1904 had been almost forgotten. What was
more present in the public mind was the advantage to owners and traders
and travellers alike of the formation of the through route (passing near
to the gigantic Birmingham Waterworks at Rhayader, and attaining the
highest point on the Cambrian system, at Pantydwr, 947 feet above
sea-level), along which, every year, in growing numbers, the Cambrian
trains have carried hosts of excursionists from the teeming valleys of
South Wales to refresh themselves--and spend money--in the health resorts
of Cardigan Bay.

In the same year, too, the Tanat Valley Railway, from Oswestry to
Llangynog, to which reference has already been made in a previous
chapter, {131} the first sod having been cut at Porthywaen by the
Countess of Powis on September 12th, 1899, was opened for traffic. Six
years later, in 1910, the Mawddwy Railway, running from Cemmes Road to
Dinas Mawddwy, which had formerly belonged to an independent Company and
later closed, was re-opened under the Light Railways Act, and worked by
the Cambrian, while in 1913, power was obtained to carry out yet another
amalgamation, which, small in itself, considerably adds to the amenities
of tourist traffic in the neighbourhood of Aberystwyth.

This was the absorption of the little Vale of Rheidol Light Railway,
which, authorised by Act of August 6th, 1897, had been constructed on a
two feet gauge, with power to enlarge up to 4ft. 8.5 inches, from that
resort up the valley for just over a dozen miles to the beauteous gorge
spanned by the far-famed Devil's Bridge. Though an independent company,
its directors were later entirely drawn from the Cambrian Board, with Mr.
Alfred Herbert, of Burway, South Croydon, as chairman. The line was
opened for goods traffic in August 1902 and for passengers the following
December, and since then many thousands of visitors to Aberystwyth have
made the delightful journey which its winding course along the hillside
affords to lovers 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,
75 tons, the passenger class being bogie engines, with four coupled
wheels 6ft. diameter, and the goods being the ordinary six wheel coupled
type.

Only one change from the old to the new is, perhaps, regretted by some.
One of the qualifications of what is popularly termed the
"railwayac,"--the man who, though not in the railway service, is keenly
interested in the running and working of trains,--is that he should be
able to recite, on demand, an accurate catalogue of engine names. In
former days, on the Cambrian, as on some other lines, every engine had
its name, and there are still middle-aged men in this locality who carry
from boyhood affectionate memory of many of these labels,--the "Albion,"
the "Milford," the "Mountaineer," the "Plasffynnon," the "Maglona" and
"Gladys," the "Glansevern," the "Tubal Cain," the "Prince of Wales" and
the like, and, later the "Beaconsfield" and the "Hartington."

To some of the directors, however, the habit of christening engines,
especially after distinguished persons or the seats of the local gentry,
seemed to savour of flunkeyism and the custom was abandoned. Only on the
London and North Western and the Great Western, and the London Brighton
and South Coast, the writer believes, does it still generally obtain, and
even there it is limited to the larger passenger locomotives. Gone, too,
is the old decoration of the tenders with the Prince of Wales's plumes,
and the only ornamentation of engines and coaches finally left being the
Company's crest, the English rose entwined with the Red Dragon of Wales,
the original design for which was made and presented to the directors
many years ago by the late Mr. W. W. E. Wynne, of Peniarth, Towyn, a
noted antiquarian of his day.

[Picture: Mr. Samuel Williamson, General Manager, 1911-1922, and
Secretary, 1906-1922]

With the increased weight of engines and coaches necessarily came a
strengthening of the road. The rebuilding of the old wooden bridges has
already been noted, but some of the girder bridges have been rebuilt
also, the last of these, over the Severn at Kilkewydd, near Welshpool,
having only been completed last year. This is now a fine structure of
four clear spans of more than 60 feet, supported by concrete piers and
abutments. Then, too, for the light iron rails laid on a sandy ballast
of the old days there have been substituted 80 lb. steel rails laid on
broken granite ballast, with a corresponding strengthening of the
fastenings, sleepers, etc., and to expedite the running of non-stop
trains, mainly during the pressure of the tourist season, special
appliances have been erected at wayside stations for the exchange of the
"tablet," by means of which the working of a single-line railway is
controlled, additional passing places have been constructed, station
platforms in several cases considerably lengthened, and one or two new
stations opened, bringing the total on the system up to 100.

During the war when Park Hall, Oswestry, was converted first into a vast
training camp and later, in part, into a German Prisoners of War camp, a
large amount of military transport work fell to the Cambrian, a network
of sidings being constructed through the area occupied, and about a
quarter of a million of troops were carried over the system to and fro,
an additional strain on the human and mechanical resources of the Company
which, however, was most efficiently sustained.

Nor does this entirely exhaust the efforts of the Company to serve the
district through which its railways pass, to increase the comfort and
convenience of the travelling public and to augment and proclaim the
amenities of the resorts to which it carries us. To this end, two
enterprises, though not directly under the control of the Cambrian, but
with which they are linked by close co-operative ties, have materially
contributed in recent years. Though Mr. Savin's ambitious schemes for
erecting hotels to house the tourists whom the trains might bring ended
in financial disaster, the idea was an excellent one; and, when revived,
some years ago on a more limited scale and under more propitious
conditions, it successfully matured in the formation of the Aberystwyth
Queen's Hotel Company, of which a prominent Cambrian director, Mr. Alfred
Herbert, is chairman, and some other members of the Board, as well as the
General Manager, Mr. S. Williamson, are directors, with the Assistant
Secretary of the Cambrian, Mr. S. G. Vowles, serving as Secretary. Not
the least advantage of this sort of quasi-partnership is the facility
which it has enabled the Cambrian to offer to the public in the shape of
combined rail and hotel tickets from the principal inland stations on the
system, entitling the visitor to travel to and fro and enjoy the
excellent week-end hospitality of the Queen's for an inclusive moderate
charge.

It may be truly said, however, that no such allurement is required by
those who are already familiar with the charms of Cambria as they unfold
themselves in almost illimitable variety all along this western seaboard,
stretching from the mouth of the Rheidol right up to the lonely
fastnesses of Lleyn. It is, therefore, more particularly to the
enlightenment of the uninitiated that the Cardigan Bay Resorts
Association, of which the Rev. Gwynoro Davies, Barmouth, is chairman and
Mr. H. Warwick, superintendent of the Cambrian line (and now its
divisional traffic superintendent under the Great Western control),
secretary, working in close and sympathetic co-operation, not only with
the Cambrian Company, but with several of the local authorities, has done
much, year after year, to make known to the potential English tourist the
delights which await him on his arrival in these coastal towns.

At any rate the glorious hills and valleys bordering the Bay, which have
inspired more than one Welsh literary itinerant to rhapsody, and
furnished Mr. Lloyd George with many a homely and figurative peroration,
have proved no mean asset to the proprietors of a railway, whose traffic
consists so largely of tourists. To the shareholders of the Cambrian has
come the satisfaction of knowing that a concern, which was born under,
and for many years continued to struggle for its very existence with, the
most embarrassing financial conditions, has gradually acquired a more
robust economic constitution.

But it has only been accomplished by long and patient conservation of its
slender reserves. Mr. Conacher, it used to be said, during his arduous
and energetic management, was "improving the Cambrian in the dark." To
his successors has been bequeathed the advantage of bringing that quiet
sowing to a fruitful and more apparent harvest. Mr. Conacher was
succeeded in the secretariat by another wise and diligent officer, the
late Mr. Richard Brayne, whose subsequent retirement to a quiet life in
the seclusion of the Shropshire village of Kinnerley, was a matter of
regret to all who knew and realised his sterling service to the Company.

On the managerial side of the joint-office which Mr. Conacher vacated,
following the comparatively short but bustling reign of Mr. Alfred Aslett
(during which much was done to redeem the line from an unlucky reputation
for unpunctuality that had become locally proverbial), and that of the
late Mr. C. S. Denniss, the Company were fortunate in securing for this
responsible office, Mr. Samuel Williamson, trained under Mr. Conacher's
tutelage, and thus specially fitted to continue that wise and far-seeing
policy which had marked his instructor's methods. Under Mr. Williamson's
guiding hand, still further assisted in very valuable fashion by Mr.
Conacher, when, for a few years before his death, in 1911, he was called
to the chair of the Board, and since then by a Board of which Major David
Davies, M.P., the grandson of one of the foremost of the Cambrian's
pioneers is chairman, the financial position of the Company has very
materially improved.

This is reflected in the terms of amalgamation with the Great Western
Company. In 1908 the stockholders of the Company received the sum of
96,556 pounds, but such was the rapid improvement in the Company's
position that in 1913 they received 119,005 pounds, that is to say, in
the space of five years the amount increased by 23.25 per cent., and it
was on this basis that the negotiations with the Great Western Company
were carried through in 1922, because for the period from 4th August,
1914, to 15th August, 1921, under the arrangement with the Government,
the profits of the Company were fixed on the 1913 basis. Commencing as
from 1st January, 1922, the terms of amalgamation give to the proprietors
of the Cambrian Company an immediate annual income of 119,307 pounds, and
this will be increased as from 1st January, 1929, by a further annual sum
of 18,161 pounds, assuming the dividend on the Ordinary Stock of the
Great Western Company remains as at present, viz:--7.25% per annum, thus
making a total of 137,468 pounds. In addition to this improvement, the
Company, on the one hand, during the period from 1909 to 1913, cleared
off a heavy debt, and, on the other hand, built up very substantial
reserves and, in fact, at the end of 1913, the financial position of the
Company was stronger than it had ever been.

[Picture: Two Faithful Servants. The late MR. RICHARD BRAYNE, Secretary
1895-1900. MR. T. S. GOLDSWORTHY, Store-keeper, and Senior Officer at
the time of its amalgamation with the Great Western]

It has, however, been an agency beyond the control of directorate or
internal management which has shaped the final destiny of the Company.
From time to time during the years up to 1914 rumours have circulated
concerning the prospective purchase of the Cambrian by one of its great
neighbours, either the Great Western, or, more often, the London and
North Western, with which it had long maintained a close working
alliance. But nothing ever matured in this direction. Cynics were apt
to suggest that the explanation might be sought in the parable of the two
dogs and the bone, neither of them really wanting it, but each anxious
that the other should not get it. Anyhow, it seemed as if the Cambrian
would become permanently established as the largest of the independent
Welsh Railways, when the Great War plunged, not only this country, but
more than half the civilized world into economic chaos. Emerging from
its war-time experience of State-control, the Cambrian, like other
railways, found itself faced with a hugely-augmented labour bill, to meet
which out of potential future revenue, appeared practically impossible.

It was under these embarrassing circumstances that Sir Eric Geddes, as
Minister of Transport, devised his grouping scheme, by which all English,
Welsh and Scottish railways are amalgamated in groups as a means to more
economical working. Together with all the other independent Welsh
Companies, the Cambrian was placed in the Western Group, with the Great
Western as absorber, and, the proposal meeting with the approval of the
proprietors, to whom the transfer offered, on the whole, a decided
financial advantage, while the directors were consoled for loss of office
with a grant of 7,000 pounds, it was merely left for the Amalgamation
Tribunal to give its final assent. This was done early in March and on
Lady Day, 1922, almost exactly seventy years after its original
inception, the Company, as a separate and independent organisation,
officially ceased to be.

III.

Such is the story of the Cambrian. If the reasonable limitations imposed
on the prolixity of authorship compel its reduction, in these pages, into
more or less broad outline, it is not for lack of plentiful material
available to the more meticulous student of its details, out of which, it
would be easy to weave a hundred volumes. Lying in the lumber cupboards
of solicitors' offices up and down Montgomeryshire, in the strong rooms
of Welsh border banks, or amongst the family archives of some of the
great country seats of Powysland, there are to be discovered by the
diligent searcher masses of old papers, the very existence of which may,
perhaps, have been half-forgotten by their present owners, but which waft
us back more than half-a-century, and shed varied light on some of the
obscurer passages in Welsh railway annals.

Early prospectuses, full of glowing promises of rich dividends the hopes
of which have long since become as faded as the now yellow leaves on
which they were inscribed. Great tomes of carefully-written-out verbatim
notes of Parliamentary Committee evidence. Equally voluminous records of
judgments delivered in Chancery by illustrious law-givers long since
dead. "Minutes of Orders on Petition," declaring this, that and the
other about the safeguarding of certain interests, and the payment of
certain dividends--if any funds could be found for the purpose!--and
enquiring all sorts of things about "gross receipts" and "monies actually
paid into Court, or which shall hereafter be paid into court." Oh,
eternal optimism of those early pioneers! Letters from engineers and
contractors. Minutes of Board Meetings. Books of accounts of
"preliminary expenses," in which "visits to London" seem to bulk so
largely and to exhaust so considerable a proportion of the capital
subscribed by eager shareholders who believed that some fine day they
were to wake to find themselves part owners of a wonderful trunk route
yielding illimitable toll upon the wealth of Lancashire and mercantile
fleets of the far-reaching seas. They are all there in quaint and often
incongruous companionship, and as one turns over their dusty pages and
reverently replaces them in their grave of tattered brown paper, one is
prompted to reflect, not without a wistful sigh, upon the vanity of human
hopes and expectations.

And yet, if the Cambrian never became the great and glorious institution
which those pioneers and projectors of its initial component parts
intended, and sincerely believed it would, can it be either truly or
generously said that their labours were in vain? By their courage and
determination and resolute struggle against enormous adversity, they did,
at least, bring into being a public service which has opened up remote
valleys, formed a link between the great centres of England and of South
Wales, and the coast of Cardigan Bay, and kindled a new life for and
offered the opportunity of increased prosperity to many a small country
town in Shropshire, Montgomeryshire, and Merioneth. They have created
means of employment for thousands of workers, and afforded facilities for
recreation for millions more who have thus been enabled and encouraged to
spend their holidays amidst the health-giving breezes of the mountains
and the sea. And above all they, and their successors in the conduct of
the undertaking, with its developing lines, have shown us how, despite
the early apathy and even jealousy of neighbouring "giant leviathans," a
small independent railway company can faithfully serve its day and
generation, until, by one of those unforeseen strokes of irony to which
corporate as well as individual life is ever subject, it is thrown by
eccentric Fate into the arms of the very Company, under whose protective
aegis the originators of the Oswestry and Newtown and the Newtown and
Machynlleth Railways so ardently, but vainly, desired to place themselves
more than half a century ago.

What may be the outcome of this great change it is yet too early to
predict; but, whatever it be, for weal or woe, it is a sad thought to
many that what they have so long known, and smiled at, and cursed, and
loved as "the poor old Cambrian," officially is no more, and "the debt
that cancels all others" is finally discharged.

APPENDIX.

LIST OF CHAIRMEN OF THE CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS SINCE THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE
VARIOUS INDEPENDENT UNDERTAKINGS IN 1864.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL VANE. (Afterwards the Most Hon. The
Marquess of Londonderry) (1864-1884)

CAPTAIN R. D. PRYCE (1884-1886)

MR. JAMES FREDERIC BUCKLEY (1886-1900)

MR. ARTHUR CHARLES HUMPHREYS-OWEN, M.P. (1900-1905)

MR. WILLIAM BAILEY HAWKINS (1905-1909)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1909-1911)

LT.-COL. DAVID DAVIES, M.P. (1911-1922)

LIST OF GENERAL MANAGERS SINCE THE DATE OF CONSOLIDATION.

MR. GEORGE LEWIS (1864-1882)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1890-1891)

MR. ALFRED ASLETT (1891-1895)

MR. C. S. DENNISS (1895-1910)

MR. S. WILLIAMSON (1911-1922)

(Between 1882 and 1890 and again in 1910-11 there was no General Manager,
the office being designated traffic manager).

LIST OF SECRETARIES SINCE THE DATE OF CONSOLIDATION.

MR. GEORGE LEWIS (1864-1882)

MR. JOHN CONACHER (1882-1891)

MR. ALFRED ASLETT (1891-1895)

MR. R. BRAYNE (l895-1900)

MR. C. S. DENNISS (1900-1906)

MR. S. WILLIAMSON (1906-1922)

LIST OF DIRECTORS AND OFFICIALS AT THE DATE OF AMALGAMATION, 27th MARCH,
1922.

_DIRECTORS_--

Chairman: LT.-COL. DAVID DAVIES, M.P., Broneirion, Llandinam, Mont.

Deputy Chairman: THOMAS CRAVEN, ESQ., D.L., J.P., 12a, Kensington Palace
Gardens, London, W., 8.

LT.-COL. N. W. APPERLEY, M.V.O., Southend, Durham.

CHARLES BRIDGER ORME CLARKE, ESQ., 4, St. Dunstan's Alley, E.C., 3.

SIR JOSEPH DAVIES, K.B.E., M.P., Dinas Powis, Glam.

ALFRED HERBERT, ESQ., Burway, Harewood Road, South Croydon.

COLONEL RT. HON. LORD KENYON, K.C.V.O., Gredington, Whitchurch, Salop.

THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF POWIS, Powis Castle, Welshpool.

_OFFICERS_--

Secretary and General Manager: MR. S. WILLIAMSON.

Assistant Secretary: MR. S. G. VOWLES.

Accountant: MR. R. WILLIAMSON.

Engineer and Loco Superintendent: MR. G. C. MCDONALD.

Assistant Engineer: MR. J. WILLIAMSON.

Works Manager: MR. E. COLCLOUGH.

Superintendent of the Line: MR. H. WARWICK.

Goods Manager: MR. W. FINCHETT.

Store Keeper: MR. T. GOLDSWORTHY.

Auditors: MESSRS. JAMES FRASER, 31, Copthall Avenue, E.C.; and CHARLES
FOX, 11, Old Jewry Chambers, E.C.

Solicitor: MR. W. KENRICK MINSHALL, Oswestry.

Bankers: LLOYD'S BANK LTD., Oswestry.

SOME OLD TIME TABLES.

1860. OSWESTRY AND NEWTOWN RAILWAY:

UP 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3
WELSHPOOL 6:35 8:45 11:45 2:25 4:05 7:50
Pool Quay 6:50 9:00 12:00 2:40 4:20 8:05
Four Crosses 7:02 9:12 12:12 2:52 4:30 8:17
Llanymynech 7:10 9:20 12:20 3:00 4:40 8:25
Llynclys 7:15 9:25 12:25 3:05 . . 8:30
OSWESTRY 7:23 9:35 12:35 3:15 4:55 8:40

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