and later known as "the Potteries,"
constructed from a station in Abbey Forgate, Shrewsbury, to Llanymynech,
and on to Nantmawr, with a branch from Kinnerley to Criggion, ran for a
time, then fell into abeyance and disrepair, and was in recent years
re-opened under the Light Railways Act as the Shropshire and
Montgomeryshire Railway, an independent company.

But, in its original form, the undertaking was apparently to be no
friendly competitor with the existing Oswestry and Newtown and associated
lines, whose ambition it had, for some time, been to extend its northern
terminus, resting on the Great Western branch at Oswestry, through
Ellesmere to Whitchurch, there to form a more serviceable junction with
the London and North Western from Shrewsbury to Crewe, and the busy hives
of Lancashire. But more formidable opposition was already afoot
elsewhere. The Great Western, none too eager, as we have seen, to assist
independent undertakings in Montgomeryshire, were ready enough to capture
traffic in other quarters, and their answer to the Oswestry and
Whitchurch project was to formulate a scheme for a branch from Rednal to
Ellesmere, with incidental hints about constructing a loop to place
Oswestry on their main line. Draughtsmen were busy everywhere with pens
and plans. Public halls echoed to the optimistic eloquence of promoters
and counter promoters, and powder and shot was being hurriedly got
together for the tremendous fusilade in the Parliamentary committee
rooms, where, for many a long day, there was to rage and sway the battle
for the rights and privileges of bringing the steam engine into the
little town of Ellesmere.

For, though wider schemes were involved in the struggle, Ellesmere was
the pivot on which arguments and contentions centred. In such a
conflict, needless to say, all the old rivalries of "leviathan"
interests, of which we have already heard so much, re-emerged. What was
still called the "Montgomeryshire party"--the men who had brought the
other local railways into existence in spite of well-nigh overwhelming
difficulties--continued to look for association with the North Western
for greater salvation. Others favoured the chance of obtaining increased
facilities for through traffic from the Great Western. Between the two
warring elements, Ellesmere itself, as one of its most estimable and
influential citizens had put it, believed it was "now or never" for them.
In the Parliamentary Committee R