A meeting was held at Llanfair at which Mr. Edwin Hilton explained a scheme which was estimated to cost £60,000, of which £20,000 should first be raised in ordinary shares, the rest to be made up afterwards of preference shares and debentures. But nothing directly came of it, and it was not until October, 1864, that another proposal was formulated, this time of more ambitious character. This was a variation of the original Shrewsbury and West Midland route, which Llanfyllin had already laughed out of countenance, starting from Welshpool and making its way through Llanfair over (or rather under) the Berwyns to the Great Western system by the Dee. Mr. David Davies, on being consulted, favoured a 2ft. 3in. guage, though he advised that enough land should be taken and bridges built to accommodate an ordinary
guage later if found necessary. The minimum speed on the narrow guage was to be fifteen miles an hour, and it was estimated that the average receipts would work out at £5 per mile.
Amongst the leading advocates of this scheme was Mr. Russel Aitken, a well-known civil engineer of Westminster, the home of many Welsh railway projects in those days. He got into correspondence with Lord Powis about it, pointing out that, as a beginning, the line might be made as far as Llanfair, and then the promoters might “wait and see.” But Powis Castle was not so easily to be persuaded. The Earl considered a railway from Welshpool below Llanfair Road to Sylvaen Hall “very objectionable” and much preferred the alternative route of branching off the Llanfyllin line at Llansantffaid, via Pont Robert. This Mr. Aitken “could not successfully try to contest” and therefore “gave up the idea of trying for powers to construct the proposed railway,” but he still thought a line “from Bala to Welshpool would pay and that it would be a great benefit to the country through which it passes.” How far these prognostications may have been justified experience has never given us opportunity to ascertain. A railway through the mighty ramparts of the Berwyns is as remote an accomplishment to-day as it ever was; though, after many years, Llanfair itself was to obtain its narrow guage line, an inch less than Mr. Davies’s original design, which, under the name of the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway, with the Earl’s successor as its most enthusiastic promoter and chairman, was opened for traffic on April 4th, 1903, to be worked by the Cambrian as an important feeder to its main system.
A shorter branch, some five miles in length, from Abermule winding up the course of the Mule to the village of Kerry, was in course of construction while these other schemes were
maturing or languishing. On Monday, March 2nd, 1863, the first engine puffed its way up the long incline (some of it as steep as 1 in 43) to Kerry, drawing one carriage, and on its arrival, after several stoppages on the way to “make steam,” was met by a company of local ladies and gentlemen. It had been intended to indulge in some speechmaking, as befitted so auspicious an occasion, but the assembled guests were so absorbed in shaking hands with one another and looking at the engine, panting after its exertions, that the oratory was forgotten, and folks were content to offer their personal congratulations to Mr. Poundley, through whose enthusiasm and activities the branch was mainly built. It had also been arranged to attach to the train a truck of coal from Abermule to distribute amongst the poor, but this was more than the locomotive could accomplish. It went up the next day, and, no doubt, contributed to a wide endorsement of the views of the newspaper scribe, detailed to record these stirring events, that the branch was “everything Kerry can want.” Anyhow, with its still rare trains, it is all that Kerry has ever had, and possibly Kerry is still content.
The Kerry branch is also noteworthy for another thing, that it is the first arm of the system which diverges to the east of the main line. So does what was originally the first portion of the trunk, the line from Moat Lane to Llanidloes, later extended by the amalgamation with the Mid-Wales Railway, to Brecon, and so also does another diminutive line, another mile further, which, though not part of the Cambrian proper, deserves notice in these pages, if only for the personality of its former manager.
This is the Van line, which ran from Caersws (whose station is built on the site of an old Roman settlement) up to the Van mines, once productive enough of valuable lead ore,
but now derelict. Constructed under the Railways Construction Facilities Act, 1864, the line was opened for mineral traffic on August 14th, 1871 and for passenger traffic on December 1st, 1873. It was leased to the Cambrian, but got into Chancery and was closed a few years later. While it ran many made pilgrimage along its short length, less for the purpose of traversing its rather uninteresting course than for a chance of conversing with one of the most notable characters, under whose charge the trains ran. To many Welshmen, indeed, who never travelled on or even heard, except perhaps quite incidentally, of the Van Railway, the name of John Ceiriog Hughes is a household word.
Born at Llanarmon-Dyffryn-Ceiriog, in Denbighshire, on September 25th, 1832, he passed his early years in the romantic vale of the Ceiriog, amidst the glowing memories of Huw Morris of Pont-y-Meibion. Beginning his business career in Manchester, he soon returned to his native land, and, after occupying a position as stationmaster at Llanidloes, was appointed to the management of this little line. The duties were not particularly arduous, and, in any case, “Ceiriog” was apt to take life with a light heart. Whether he sat in his office or in the cosy corner of some favourite rural inn the muse burned brightly within him, and, from his remote retreat among the hills which look down on the infant Severn, he poured out his soul in poetry, which ranks high in Celtic literature. Welsh verse always suffers in translation into the more cumbrous English, but there are many who have known the charm even of an Anglicised version of “Myvanwy Vychan,” and when he died, in 1887, he was acclaimed by such an authority as the Rev. H. Elvet Lewis, to be “one of the best lyrical poets of Wales,” who had “rendered excellent service to the national melodies