Welsh Journals

THE CAMBRIAN RAILWAYS: II (1889-1968). By Rex Christiansen and R. W. Miller. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1968. Pp. 218. 42s. To maintain a lively and readable narrative in the history of the decline and fall of a railway system is a difficult task. Yet this is exactly the task Christiansen and Miller have set themselves in the concluding volume of their definitive history of the Cambrian Railways. Volume I naturally exhibited a spirit of freshness and adventure as it traced the pioneering work of the Cambrian system in its battles waged against economics, the law, and even the physical geography of mid-Wales. The authors are to be congratulated on maintaining throughout vol. II the same high standard of narrative. Essentially, the period 1889-1968 was one of consolidation followed by decline and contraction. With the amalgamation of the Cambrian and the Mid-Wales Railways in 1888, the Cambrian network covered a total of 241 miles and 25 chains. Two further branches were to be constructed: one from Wrexham to Ellesmere of 12 miles 57 chains; and a second from Caersws to the Van, a distance of 6 miles and 40 chains. In addition, under Light Railway Acts the lines from Welshpool to Llanfair Caereinion, and Cemmes Road to Dinas Mawddwy were constructed, and running powers over other existing branches obtained, bringing the total mileage owned and worked in 1914 to 298 miles and 28 chains. This was no mean network, and the first decade of the present century saw the hey-day of the Cambrian system. The authors have given justifiable emphasis to this final period of Cambrian independence. Nevertheless, their claim that the Cambrian was thinking of developing a connecting motor bus service before the G.W.R. became 'the first railway company to start a motor service' is a little overstated, and indeed inaccurate when it is remembered that Sir George Newnes was contemplating such a project at this time, and had already introduced a connecting road motor service from Ilfracombe to the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway at Blackmoor in April 1903. It was, in fact, Newnes's buses which the G.W.R. purchased to inaugurate their Helston-Lizard service in August 1903. The First World War was a difficult period for all small railways. Many rural branch-lines (for example, the north Pembrokeshire and Fishguard line) were lifted to provide metal for the war effort; not so the Cambrian. The period of the war was the Cambrian's 'Glorious Hour'. The authors draw attention to the 'Jellicoe' coal specials which roared through the night from south Wales via the Cambrian network to the north of Scotland to coal the fleet. No Cambrian branches were lifted, and the Cambrian survived the war intact, if a little shaken. The authors deal faithfully with the details of locomotives and rolling- stock owned by, and worked on, the Cambrian system. They also give close attention to the main architectural features of the line. Fortunately,