The early (1860-1868) history of the Knighton, Central Wales and Central Wales Extension railways is confusing with contradictions between various authors (esp. the D&C Regional History volumes and Quick's stations tome).
Is there a reliable source, with provenances/sources, of the opening dates of the various sections and stations?
Central Wales line - early history
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RichardMaund
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Joe RLVW
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Re: Central Wales line - early history
Hi Richard,
I came across this link which might be useful although I expect you have looked at this type of information before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... of_opening
I can't vouch for the provenance, but is might help, or be a useful reference page for others at least.
I also appreciate you are expert on this subject, per your review of Micheal Quick's book as mentioned in the link below; and clearly you have experience of the errors in and differences between secondary sources that might exist.
https://rchs.org.uk/railway-passenger-s ... hronology/
I guess inevitably there are places where the available information in different secondary reference sources agree. So for these it seems reasonable to accept the dates.
In case of conflicts then presumably the only way to get to a correct answer (in so far as this is possible) is to try the primary sources such as Minutes of Board Meetings of the relevant companies / newspaper articles etc from sources such as National Archives / libraries etc. Clearly it is perfectly possible there are conflicts in the dates in these primary sources - and this might be the reason for at least some of the date conflicts between different secondary sources in the first place?
I guess this is the nature of the problem and all stating the obvious - so not sure that any of this helps. It just depends how much time and effort one is prepared to go to getting an "exact" answer.
Hope these thoughts are some help to you in deciding what approach you might take on the very difficult question you raise.
Best wishes,
Regards,
Joe RLVW
I came across this link which might be useful although I expect you have looked at this type of information before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... of_opening
I can't vouch for the provenance, but is might help, or be a useful reference page for others at least.
I also appreciate you are expert on this subject, per your review of Micheal Quick's book as mentioned in the link below; and clearly you have experience of the errors in and differences between secondary sources that might exist.
https://rchs.org.uk/railway-passenger-s ... hronology/
I guess inevitably there are places where the available information in different secondary reference sources agree. So for these it seems reasonable to accept the dates.
In case of conflicts then presumably the only way to get to a correct answer (in so far as this is possible) is to try the primary sources such as Minutes of Board Meetings of the relevant companies / newspaper articles etc from sources such as National Archives / libraries etc. Clearly it is perfectly possible there are conflicts in the dates in these primary sources - and this might be the reason for at least some of the date conflicts between different secondary sources in the first place?
I guess this is the nature of the problem and all stating the obvious - so not sure that any of this helps. It just depends how much time and effort one is prepared to go to getting an "exact" answer.
Hope these thoughts are some help to you in deciding what approach you might take on the very difficult question you raise.
Best wishes,
Regards,
Joe RLVW