seems to have
been easier then than it is now to "keep things out of the newspapers"!

Less easy to hide was the huge landslide, many years later, of a portion
of Talerddig cutting, though on this occasion no accident resulted to any
train, and the worst fate that befel the passengers was that, during the
considerable time occupied in clearing the line--it was at the height of
the tourist season, too--they and their baggage had to be conveyed by
road for a mile or two, an arduous task accomplished by the Company's
officials without a single mishap.

Such happenings in such a character of country are practically
inevitable, but it was not until the Cambrian had been in existence, as a
combined organisation, for nearly twenty years, that its story was
interrupted, through such a cause, by what was truly described as "the
most alarming accident which had ever occurred on the system." In point
of death-roll it was not more melancholy than that at Caersws, but its
scene and its dramatic nature provided a new feature which intimately
touched the public imagination. For it was the first serious disaster in
the annals of these undertakings to a passenger train, and, though not
one of them was even injured, the hair-breadth escape of several was
thrilling enough.

On New Year's Day, 1883, the evening train from Machynlleth for the coast
line, drawn by the "Pegasus," driven by William Davies, whose fireman
bore a similar name, on reaching the Barmouth end of the Friog decline,
built on the shelf of the rock overlooking the sea, struck a mass of
several tons of soil, which had suddenly fallen from the steep
embankment, together with a portion of retaining wall. The engine and
tender appear to have passed the obstruction and then were hurled to the
rocks below. Most fortunately the couplings between the tender and the
coaches broke, and though the first carriage overturned, and lay
perilously poised over the ledge, it did not fall. The next coach also
overturned, but in safer position, and probably held up the first.

The remaining coach, which contained most of the passengers, and the van
remained on the rails. Amongst those in the train was Captain Pryce,
once more fortunate in his deliverance from death, and he and others
immediately did what was possible to release the rest from danger. In
the overhanging carriage was one old lady, Mrs. Lloyd, of Welshpool, a
well-known character at Towyn, where she carried on a succe