nd arrangements, the improved transit
of the coals above-ground from the pithead to the shipping-place,
demanded an increasing share of his attention. Every day's experience
convinced him that the locomotive constructed by him after his patent of
the year 1815, was far from perfect; though he continued to entertain
confident hopes of its eventual success. He even went so far as to say
that the locomotive would yet supersede every other traction-power for
drawing heavy loads. Many still regarded his travelling engine as little
better than a curious toy; and some, shaking their heads, predicted for
it "a terrible blow-up some day." Nevertheless, it was daily performing
its work with regularity, dragging the coal-waggons between the colliery
and the staiths, and saving the labour of many men and horses. There was
not, however, so marked a saving in haulage as to induce the colliery
masters to adopt locomotive power generally as a substitute for horses.
How it could be improved and rendered more efficient as well as
economical, was constantly present to Stephenson's mind.

At an early period of his labours, or about the time when he had
completed his second locomotive, he began to direct his particular
attention to the state of the Road; as he perceived that the extended use
of the locomotive must necessarily depend in a great measure upon the
perfection, solidity, continuity, and smoothness of the way along which
the engine travelled. Even at that early period, he was in the habit of
regarding the road and the locomotive as one machine, speaking of the
rail and the wheel as "man and wife."

All railways were at that time laid in a careless and loose manner, and
great inequalities of level were allowed to occur without much attention
being paid to repairs. The consequence was a great loss of power, as
well as much tear and wear of the machinery, by the frequent jolts and
blows of the wheels against the rails. His first object therefore was,
to remove the inequalities produced by the imperfect junction between
rail and rail. At that time, (in 1816) the rails were made of cast iron,
each rail being about three feet long; and sufficient care was not taken
to maintain the points of junction on the same level. The chairs, or
cast-iron pedestals into which the rails were inserted, were flat at the
bottom; so that, whenever any disturbance took place in the stone blocks
or sleepers supporting them, the flat base of the c