l companies, and the project was not
revived for several years. The line was somewhat circuitous, and the
works were heavy; but on the whole the gradients were favourable, and it
had the advantage of passing through a district full of manufacturing
towns and villages, teeming hives of population, industry, and
enterprise. The Act authorising the construction of the railway was
obtained in 1836; it was greatly amended in the succeeding year, and the
first ground was broken on the 18th August, 1837.

In conducting this project to an issue, the engineer had the usual
opposition and prejudices to encounter. Predictions were confidently
made in many quarters that the line could never succeed. It was declared
that the utmost engineering skill could not construct a railway through
such a country of hills and hard rocks; and it was maintained that, even
if the railroad were practicable, it could only be made at a ruinous
cost.

During the progress of the works, as the Summit Tunnel, near
Littleborough, was approaching completion, the rumour was spread abroad
in Manchester that the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of the
workmen. The last arch had been keyed in, and the work was all but
finished, when the accident occurred which was thus exaggerated by the
lying tongue of rumour. An invert had given way through the irregular
pressure of the surrounding earth and rock at a part of the tunnel where
a "fault" had occurred in the strata. A party of the directors
accompanied the engineer to inspect the scene of the accident. They
entered the tunnel's mouth preceded by upwards of fifty navvies, each
bearing a torch.

After walking a distance of about half a mile, the inspecting party
arrived at the scene of the "frightful accident," about which so much
alarm had been spread. All that was visible was a certain unevenness of
the ground, which had been forced up by the invert under it giving way;
thus the ballast had been loosened, the drain running along the centre of
the road had been displaced, and small pools of water stood about. But
the whole of the walls and the roof were still as perfect as at any other
part of the tunnel.

[Picture: Entrance to the Summit Tunnel, Littleborough]

The engineer explained the cause of the accident; the blue shale, he
said, through which the excavation passed at that point, was considered
so hard and firm, as to render it unnecessary to build the invert very
strong th