grand title was changed to the more modest Portpatrick Railway (PPR). With little opposition, it obtained its authorising Act on 10 August 1857. Capital was to be £460,000 with borrowing powers of £150,000, and three railways were required to subscribe funds: the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (£40,000), the G&SWR (£60,000), and the Belfast and County Down Railway (£15,000). (Those three railways had the option of subscribing more in addition.) The main line was to be 60 miles 60 chains (98 km) in length from Castle Douglas to Portpatrick, with two short branches: to the west quay at Stranraer, and to the north pier at Portpatrick. The construction process was put in hand, but the available funds were not sufficient to complete the line, and the PPR approached the other railways for further financial support; the Lancaster and Carlisle was reluctant but was urged by its sponsoring company, the London and North Western Railway to do so. The G&SWR subscribed an additional £40,000. Towards the end of the construction period the PR gave consideration to the working arrangements. The G&SWR were authorised to work the line by the original Act, and had offered to do so for 72% of gross receipts. This charge was considered excessive and negotiations took place which the PPR board considered unsatisfactory. On 28 March 1860, they decided that "the board should retain the working of the line under their own management" Evidently this had been foreseen, and provisional arrangements for the supply of locomotives had already been made, and this was quickly followed by contracts for rolling stock and for signalling equipment. The G&SWR had been confident that its terms for working the line would have to be accepted, and it was now angry at the emerging decision. It had subscribed £60,000 to the PPR on the assumption that the little Company would effectively belong to it, and had promised a further £40,000: it now made that sum conditional on an impossible contribution by the Belfast and County Down Railway. The breach was irreconcilable, made more so by the fact that the acid correspondence between the two companies was published as a pamphlet. Dalrymple, as Chairman, told his shareholders that the loss of the £40,000, though "attended with great inconvenience" need not "make any material, or at least, permanent, financial embarrassment". Portpatrick Railway: operation to 1863 So the PPR made its own arrangements, and early in