e projected Dee Bridge and Wrexham to South Wales;
but, though nothing materialised at the time, there was something of
intelligent anticipation about the appointment, in 1891, of Mr. Conacher,
as manager of the Neath and Brecon Railway, one of the parties to the
proposal, in addition to his management of the Cambrian. Very soon
afterwards, however, Mr. Conacher left for the North British and the
joint office was terminated. But another significant new link in the
"Welsh Union" chain was forged in 1895, with the construction of the
Wrexham and Ellesmere Railway, which, though an independent Company, with
the Hon. George T. Kenyon, M.P., as its first chairman and Mr. O. S. Holt
as secretary, was from the outset worked by the Cambrian, and thus formed
a new direct connection from that Company's system, into the Denbighshire
coal-field, and hence, by the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay, later
absorbed by the Great Central, into Chester and the Merseyside.

It was, therefore, no startling departure, when in 1904, the Cambrian
sought Parliamentary powers, for which Royal Assent was granted on June
24th, to carry out its previous proposal to amalgamate with the Mid-Wales
Railway. This line, some 50 miles in length, which had been constructed
about the same time as the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway, and formed a
junction with that undertaking at the latter town, had all along been in
friendly co-operation with the Cambrian, but the change of company also
involved a change of carriages at Llanidloes with consequent delay. From
July 1st in that year Cambrian trains began to run through, down the
beautiful valley of the Upper Wye, connecting with the Midland system at
Three Cocks Junction and then from Talyllyn Junction, over the Brecon and
Merthyr Company's metals into Brecon, while on the financial side, stocks
and shares of the Mid-Wales were converted into stocks and shares of the
Cambrian, and the arrears of interest on the Mid-Wales "B" debenture
stock were capitalised into Cambrian "B" debenture stock.

The Mid-Wales like the Cambrian, had had a chequered early career.
Indeed, it might be said that its embarrassments began at the cutting of
the first sod, when Mr. Whalley, who was as ubiquitous as ever where
Welsh railways were concerned, permitted himself to make some remarks, in
his speech, disparaging Messrs. David Davies and Savin because he
disapproved their method of financing the line. Never before or since
ha