The financial difficulties under which some railway companies have
recently laboured were brought to a crisis lately in the case of the
Potteries, Shrewsbury, and North Wales Railway, a line running from
Llanymynech to Shrewsbury, with a projected continuation to the
Potteries. A debenture holder having obtained a judgment against the
company, a writ was forthwith issued, and a few days back the sheriff’s
officers unexpectedly presented themselves at the company’s principal
station in Shrewsbury, and formally entered upon possession. The down
train immediately after entered the station, and the bailiffs, without
having given any previous intimation to the manager, whose office adjoins
the station, seized the engines and carriages, and refused to permit the
outgoing train to start, although many passengers had taken tickets.
Ultimately the manager obtained the requisite permission, and it was
arranged that the train should make the journey, one of the bailiffs
meanwhile remaining in charge. The acting-sheriff refused a similar
concession with regard to the further running of the trains, and it being
fair day at Shrewsbury, and a large number of persons from various
stations along the line having taken return tickets, much inconvenience
to the public was likely to ensue. The North Wales section of this line
was completed in August last at a cost of a little over £1,100,000, and
was opened for passenger and goods traffic on the 13th of that month. As
has already been stated, the ordinary traffic of the line was, after the
enforcement of the writ, permitted to be continued, with the proviso that
a bailiff should accompany each train. This condition was naturally very
galling to the officials of the railway company, but they nevertheless
treated the representative of the civil law with a marked politeness. On
the night of his first becoming a constant passenger by the line he rode
in a first-class carriage to Llanymynech, and on the return journey the
attentive guard conducted him to a similar compartment which was devoted
to his sole occupation. On arriving at Kennerly the bailiff became
conscious of the progress of an elaborate process of shunting, followed
by an entire stoppage of the train. After sitting patiently for some
minutes it occurred to him to put his head out of the window and inquire
the reason for the delay, and in carrying out the idea he discovered that
the train of which his carriage had lately formed a part was vanishing
from sight round a distant curve in the line. He lost no time in getting
out and making his way into the station, which he found locked up,
according to custom, after the passage through of the last down train.
Kennerly is a small roadside station about 12 miles from Shrewsbury, and
offers no accommodation for chance guests; and, had it been otherwise, it
was of course the first duty of the bailiff to look after the train, of
which he at that moment was supposed to be in “possession.” There being
no alternative, he started on foot for Shrewsbury, where he arrived
shortly after midnight, having accomplished a perilous passage along the
line. It appeared, on inquiry, that in the course of the shunting the
coupling-chain which connected the tail coach with the body of the train
had by some means become unlinked; hence the accident. The bailiff
accepted the explanation, but on subsequent journeys he carefully avoided
the tail-coach.
_Railway News_, 1866.