he beloved locomotive.
He worked at his line early and late; he took the sights with the
spirit-level with his own eye; he was determined to make it a model
railway. It was a long and heavy work, for railway surveying was then
a new art, and the appliances were all fresh and experimental; but in
the end, Stephenson brought it to a happy conclusion, and struck at
once the death-blow of the old road-travelling system. The line was
opened successfully in 1825, and the engine started off on the
inaugural ceremony with a magnificent train of thirty-eight vehicles.
"Such was its velocity," says a newspaper of the day, "that in some
parts the speed was frequently twelve miles an hour."

The success of the Stockton and Darlington railway was so immense and
unexpected, the number of passengers who went by it was so great, and
the quantity of coal carried for shipment so far beyond anything the
projectors themselves could have anticipated, that a desire soon began
to be felt for similar works in other places. There are no two towns in
England which absolutely need a railway communication from one to the
other so much as Liverpool and Manchester. The first is the great port
of entry for cotton, the second is the great centre of its manufacture.
The Bridgewater canal had helped for a time to make up for the want of
water communication between those two closely connected towns; but as
trade developed, the canal became too small for the demands upon it,
and the need for an additional means of intercourse was deeply felt. A
committee was formed to build a railway in this busy district, and
after a short time George Stephenson was engaged to superintend its
construction.

A long and severe fight was fought over the Liverpool and Manchester
railway, and it was at first doubtful whether the scheme would ever be
carried out. Many great landowners were strongly opposed to it, and
tried their best to keep the bill for authorizing it from passing
through Parliament. Stephenson himself was compelled to appear in
London as a witness before a parliamentary committee, and was closely
cross-examined as to the possibilities of his plan. In those days,
even after the success of the Stockton and Darlington line, his views
about the future of railways were still regarded by most sober persons
as ridiculously wild and enthusiastic; while the notion that trains
might be made to travel twice as fast as stage-coaches, was scouted as
the most pal