So, sweeping aside all "ifs" and "buts," Llanfyllin voted for the Llanymynech branch. Whether it might be worked as an independent undertaking or as part of the Oswestry and Newtown Company's concern, mattered comparatively little. In either case, Mr. Savin was ready to guarantee a dividend of 4.5 per cent., and Mr. Whalley had so much confidence in the firm of contractors that he would back the guarantee with his own name. Big companies should have no blighting and delaying influence on their little valley. Like the other local companies to which Mr. Howell alluded as examples of self-reliance, they would "trust to their own exertions," and since, as somebody said, the Oswestry and Newtown Railway was already a concrete fact, and no mere hypothetical proposition, it was agreed to "join heart and hand" with the company. A resolution to that effect was proposed by Mr. C. R. Jones, seconded by Mr. John Jones--two names long intimately associated in close comradeship with the public life of Llanfyllin--and carried unanimously; a similar conclusion being arrived at at a meeting of "a few of the most influential inhabitants of Llanymynech," with the Rev. J. Luxmoore, Rector, in the chair, later in the day. [Picture: Latest Cambrian Composite Bogey Coach, built for through traffic between Aberystwyth and Manchester] As to the rival West Midland scheme, like the ogre in the fairy tale which ends happily ever afterwards, "little more was heard of it," at any rate as a great through route from Shrewsbury to the sea. The project was revived in the Parliamentary session of 1864, and a crowded meeting at Llanrhaiadr gave it tumultuous blessing in speech and bardic effusion. {94} But, though ultimately a line was constructed from Shrewsbury (as we have shown in a previous chapter) it got no further than the Nantmawr quarries, a few miles north-west of Llanymynech, and after running some years, became derelict, until revived under the Light Railways Act as the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway. Not until 1904 did the Tanat Valley itself echo to the sound of any sort of railway coach, "lightning" or otherwise. Here again it was the Light Railways Act which made construction possible. The Tanat Valley Light Railway Company was formed, the directors being gentlemen interested in the locality, with Alderman Charles E. Williams, of Oswestry, as Chairman. After some controversy as to whether the line should be narrow guage, starting from Oswestry and running along the Morda Valley through Llansilin, or an ordinary guage extension of the mineral branch from Llynclys to Porthywaen, via Llanyblodwel, the latter plan was adopted, and, under pressure from the Earl of Bradford, a large local landowner, a connection was also formed over the old Nantmawr mineral line to Llanymynech. The railway which had its terminus at Llangynog has well served an important quarrying and agricultural district, but it has never flourished