lic," and it "often
did not leave Welshpool until an hour after the advertised time."

Those "mixed trains" survived until some thirty years ago, when an
unregenerate Board of Trade regulation prohibited them, and the wonderful
jolts and jars which the public experienced for their "convenience" and
the benefit of their liver, if not their nerves, became a thing of the
past. But, as an old driver remarked to the writer not long ago,--"It
was very comfortable working in those days," and no doubt, for the
traffic staff, it was.

We may smile to-day at some of these old ordinances and habits, but
traffic then was not as congested as it is on an August day now, when
thousands of tourists are being carried in heavily ladened trains to the
coast of Cardigan Bay. The rolling stock at that time was as light as
the signals were haphazard. We have read of references, in these early
days, to "powerful" engines; but they were mere pigmies to the modern
locomotive, and some of those pioneer machines which were the pride of
the dale sixty years ago have been relegated long since to the humble
duty of the shunting yard, or rebuilt altogether.

[Picture: An Early Cambrian Tank Engine. Original Form (top), As
Re-built (bottom)]

An old engineman, writing some little time since in the "Cambrian News,"
gives an interesting retrospect of the "comforts" of railway travel on
the Cambrian in those early days. "The original passenger rolling stock
on service on the line when opened," he says, "was of a small
four-wheeled type, similar in construction to the coaches on other
company's lines; about 25 feet long over all, 13 feet wheel base, or half
the length and a third the weight of the bogie stock of the present day.
The coaches were built by contract, the work being divided between two
well-known firms of builders,--the Ashbury Co., Manchester, and the
Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, Birmingham. The Ashbury
stock was slightly larger with more head room than the Metropolitan. The
coaches were built of the very best material, the lower part of body
being painted a dark brown, the upper part, from the door handles to
roof, a cream colour. {114} Each coach weighed about 8 tons. The 'third
class' coaches were made up of five compartments or semi-compartments.
Cross seats, back to back sittings for five aside--accommodation for
fifty passengers--bare boards for the seats, straight up back