," wrote Mrs. Owen, "we have been
strangers in this part of the county to the preparations necessary for
inaugurating a railway, and it should not, therefore, be wondered at if
our first attempt should not have been attended with _perfect success_;
misapprehension, excess of zeal and inexperience might all lead to
mistakes and errors, and it is not, perhaps, possible for us all to
escape censure."

Perhaps not. At any rate, it was a philosophic conclusion, and it
enabled the Board, with unruffled feathers, to proceed to the business of
receiving tenders for the construction of the line. Out of seven, the
lowest was that of Mr. David Davies, who was, moreover, prepared to
accept part payment in shares, an arrangement which, later, paved the way
to the process of leasing these local railways to the contractors, that
became almost a custom. Hardly, however, had these preliminaries been
successfully negotiated, when Mr. Rice Hopkins died, and after a
temporary agreement with one of his relatives to carry on in an advisory
capacity, the Board proceeded to select a successor out of four "persons
who presented themselves as eligible for this purpose."

Their choice was easily made. The line was being built by a local
contractor. Fate was now to throw up a new engineer, whose claims were
not less obvious on similar grounds. A native of Trefeglwys, Mr.
Benjamin Piercy had, from an early age, taken great interest in railway
planning, and, though this branch of the profession did not directly
touch his daily routine, he devoted many leisure hours to its study. In
his journeys through Wales he was impressed with the necessity of opening
out its valleys to the great railway world that was developing beyond the
English border, and when Mr. Henry Robertson began to make his surveys of
the Shrewsbury and Chester line, Mr. Piercy became one of his assistants.
So diligently did the young man discharge his duties here that, it is
recorded, he was the means of preventing the loss of a year in obtaining
the Act for the making of this line.

It was natural, therefore, that, when the Rea Valley line was being
mooted, he should be engaged to prepare the Parliamentary plans. It was
in this connection that an untoward incident occurred, which throws some
light on the tremendous rivalry that existed among the promoters of
various railway schemes and the means that were sometimes adopted to
thwart the progress of antagonistic proposals.