The chief actors in this arresting and peculiar drama have now all past from the stage, almost the last survivor, Mr. Hood himself, dying in 1920, after a long career of public service in the local administration of civic affairs at Ellesmere, and not before, through the gracious good offices of the last General Manager, Mr. Samuel Williamson, full and formal reconciliation had taken place between him and the Company. [Picture: Four General Managers. The late MR. GEORGE LEWIS, General Manager and Secretary, 1864-1882. The late MR. JOHN CONACHER, General Manager, 1890-1891, Secretary, 1882-1891. MR. ALFRED ASLETT, General Manager and Secretary, 1891-1895. The late MR. C. S. DENNISS, General Manager, 1895-1910, Secretary, 1900-1906] Rare, indeed, is such an "incident" in the annals of any British Railway. Much rarer, at any rate, than another cause for special managerial anxiety, though not untinged with pride,--the conveyance of a Royal passenger. In this respect the Company, particularly in more recent years, has borne its full share of responsibility and sustained it with adequate cause for self satisfaction. Queen Victoria, though she visited North Wales in the eighties, travelled by another route, and the first Royal train to pass over any part of the Cambrian system was that which bore King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, when Prince and Princess of Wales, on their visit to Machynlleth and Aberystwyth, for the former's installation as Chancellor of the University of Wales in the middle of June, 1896, and on the same occasion another distinguished traveller along the line from Wrexham to Aberystwyth was Mr. Gladstone. Eight years later, in July 1904, the late King and his Consort journeyed over the Mid-Wales section to Rhayader, to participate in the opening of the Birmingham Water Works, and thence to Welshpool on their way to London. On March 16th, 1910, King George, as Prince of Wales, passed over the Cambrian on his way to Four Crosses, to perform a similar ceremony in connection with the extension of the Liverpool Waterworks at Lake Vyrnwy, and the longest of all monarchical tours over the system was when, in the middle of July, 1911, King George, Queen Mary, and other members of the Royal family proceeded from Carnarvon via Afonwen and the Coast section to Machynlleth as guests at Plas Machynlleth, the following day to Aberystwyth for the foundation stone-laying of the Welsh National Library, and two days later, from Machynlleth to Whitchurch on their way to Scotland.