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never realised. Plans were constantly being made, and thwarted, to extend in many directions; yet few realistic steps were taken to tap the potentially lucrative mineral traffic which lay so close to hand, albeit just beyond tramway reach. Cavan management had a fatal fondness for committees, and, somehow, delicate negotiations with iron and coal mining interests in the Arigna valley were not their forte. In 1905 the C&L was still nibbling at the problem when the Government stepped in boldly to offer a Free Grant of £24,000 towards construction of the required tramway extension. The railway might well have agreed, but Leitrim Council, deeming itself already deeply enough committed in the way of C&L dividend deficits, refused to support another Guarantee. The matter was dropped.
Two years later the GNR(I) intervened, and offered a modest £500 guarantee in perpetuity if the C&L was prepared to venture construction. Not surprisingly, the proposition was declined. Next, the coal owners themselves tried to push through an Arigna Valley Railway Bill, but, thanks largely to C&L opposition, the measure was defeated in Parliament. In the end the wartime shortage of coal in Ireland forced the Government to build the extension, and its 3½ miles were completed in June 1920 at a cost of £60,000.
Another marked defect in C&L operations was lack of quality in staff though it might be added that their Locomotive Superintendents were an honourable exception to this rule. But, for exactly the same reasons as obtained on the Tralee & Dingle, the rates of pay the C&L was obliged to offer were derisory and practically guaranteed poor service throughout the company's history. Conversely, neither local management nor C&L Directors, oddly ensconced in Dublin, possessed sufficient expertise to extract consistent profit from a railway which laboured under so many handicaps. No working surplus appeared until 1893, and although operating losses were avoided from then on, remorseless payment of dividends remained a cross which ratepayers and Treasury had to bear.
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