Taken from "Our Iron Roads", by Frederick S. Williams, and originally published in 1883.

This is the first part of Chapter One, the second part, which deals with the lives of George and Robert Stevenson, is here.

The success at Darlington of the initial movement in railway enterprise could not be without effect elsewhere; and in various directions hopes arose that relief might be obtained from the inefficiency and the exactions of canal proprietors. For when an application was made for a reduction of charge, and an increase of accommodation, a decided negative was returned, and a hauteur was manifested by the canal proprietors, which naturally gave great offence. But pride went before a fall. A declaration was signed by a hundred and fifty leading men of Liverpool, that new means of communication were indispensable; and measures were adopted which eventually led to the establishment of means of communication between that town and Manchester incomparably superior in every respect to those that had previously existed.

The first English railway prospectus ever issued was that of the Liverpool and Manchester company. It was drawn up by Mr. Henry Booth, was signed by the chairman, Charles Lawrence, and was dated October 29th, 1824. It set forth that "railways hold out to the public not only a cheaper but far more expeditious mode of conveyance than any yet established"; and it stated that "in the present state of trade and of commercial enterprise despatch is no less essential than economy. Merchandise is frequently brought across the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool in twenty-one days; while, owing to the various causes of delay above enumerated, goods have in some instances been longer on their passage from Liverpool to Manchester. But this reproach must not be perpetual. The advancement in mechanical science renders it unnecessary; the good sense of the community makes it impossible. Let it not, however, be imagined that were England to be tardy other countries would pause in the march of improvement." Among the advantages that would be secured by the new system, the prospectus said: "Increased facilities for the general operations of commerce, arising out of that punctuality and despatch which will attend the transit of merchandise between Liverpool and Manchester, as well as an immense pecuniary saving to the trading community. But the inhabitants at large of these populous towns will reap their full share of direct and immediate benefit. Coal will be brought to market in greater plenty at reduced price; and farming produce of various kinds will find its way from greater distances and at more reasonable rates. To the landholders also, in the vicinity of the line, the railroad offers important advantages in extensive markets for their mineral and agricultural produce, as well as in a facility of obtaining lime and manure at a cheap rate in return. Moreover, as a cheap and expeditious means of conveyance for travellers, the railway holds out the fair prospect of a public accommodation the magnitude and importance of which cannot be immediately ascertained." This prospectus may be pondered as a great historical document.

The first great parliamentary battle for a railway was fought over the proposal to construct the line between Liverpool and Manchester. The Committee of the House of Commons, to whom the Bill was referred, met for the first time on Monday, March 21st, 1825. The chair was occupied by General Gascoigne, then member for Liverpool. At the present day no member for a locality affected by a Railway Bill is allowed to be a member of the Committee by whom it is to be considered, though he may give such advice and assistance as his local knowledge and position may render useful. Manchester was not then represented on the Committee, nor even in the House. The Company appeared by counsel, the chief of whom were Serjeant Spankie and Mr. Adam; while arrayed against the Bill was a phalanx of canal-owners, road-trustees, and landed proprietors through whose property the intended line was to pass. The legal talent engaged on their side appeared overwhelming.

Before that august array George Stephenson, a self-taught mechanic, appeared to prove by arguments and facts - stated with a Northumbrian dialect and "burr" so decided as to make him scarcely intelligible to southerners - that a certain work was possible and desirable which public opinion and the most distinguished engineers of the day had declared to be impracticable and absurd. "Clear though the subject was to himself, and familiar as he was with the powers of the locomotive," sixteen of which he had built, "it was no easy task for him to bring home his convictions, or even to convey his meaning, to the less informed minds of his hearers, in the face of the sneers, interruptions, and ridicule of the opponents of the measure, and even of the Committee, some of whom shook their heads and whispered doubts as to his sanity."

"Have you any doubt," he was asked, "that a locomotive engine could be made to take the weight of forty tons, at the rate of six miles an hour, with perfect safety?"

"An engine," he replied, "may go six miles an hour with forty tons; that is, including the weight of the carriages."

"Have you any doubt that the power of the engine might be so increased as to take that weight at any speed between six and twelve miles an hour?"

"I think the power of the engine may be increased to take that weight."

"To what extent do you conceive the power of the engine could be increased to take that weight of goods?"

"I can scarcely state that to you: the power of the engine may be increased very greatly."

"As much as double?"

"I think it might."

"If you had such an engine, in your opinion could it be made to go with perfect safety twelve miles an hour, with relation to the bursting of the boiler?"

"Yes, I think it might."

"At the rate you go at Killingworth, are the engines easily managed, easily stopped?"

"Very easily."

"Is their pace easily slackened?"

"Yes."

"Easily started again?"

"Yes."

"In short, they are easily manageable?"

"They are."

"Do you think they could be made perfectly manageable to go at the rate of eight miles an hour?"

"Yes, I conceive they might at eight miles an hour."

But in the speech with which he summed up the evidence given, Mr. Alderson declared: "I say there is no evidence upon which the Committee can safely rely, that upon an average, more than three and a half or four and a half miles an hour can be done. Consider the nature of the engine: it consists in part of a large iron boiler, and the elastic force of steam is the moving force, and that depends upon the quantity of heat ; the water is enclosed in a boiler of iron, a most rapid conductor of heat, and which must move in storms of snow, in storms of rain, and during the times of frost. At all those times it will be extremely difficult to keep up the elastic force of the steam: I do not say it is impossible, but extremely difficult."

With regard to Chat Moss, which the proposed line had to cross, Mr. Harrison declared that "It rises in height from the rain swelling it like a sponge, and sinks again in dry weather; and if a boring instrument is put into it, it sinks immediately by its own weight. The making of an embankment out of this pulpy wet moss is no very easy task. Who but Mr. Stephenson would have thought of entering into Chat Moss, carrying it out almost like wet dung? It is ignorance almost inconceivable. It is perfect madness."

"No engineer in his senses," said Mr. Francis Giles, C.E., "would go through Chat Moss if he wanted to make a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester. In my judgment," he added, with amusing self-contradictoriness of style, "a railroad certainly cannot be safely made over Chat Moss without going to the bottom of the Moss."

The Committee sat for thirty-eight days. On the 31st of May, after thirty-seven witnesses, and an indefinite number of speeches, had been heard against the Bill, the preamble was declared to have been proved by a vote of thirty-seven to thirty-six. The contest was continued on the clauses. On the 1st of June, the thirty-eighth day of the Committee's sitting, the room was cleared, and counsel, agents, and parties were then summoned to be informed that the proposal that the Company should have power to make a railway had been "put and negatived."

A first failure was not, however, conclusive. Steps were at once taken with a view to a renewed application to Parliament, and Messrs. John and George Rennie were engaged as engineers, with instructions to make a new survey, it being thought that their recognised reputation as engineers would strengthen the case. The promoters also determined to adopt a more southern route, although it involved a tunnel, the Olive Mount rock cutting, and other works, which made it necessary that the capital should be increased from £400,000 to £510,000.

The third reading of the Bill was carried in the Commons by a majority of 88 to 41. The cost of obtaining the Act was £27,000. Mr. George Stephenson was now appointed principal engineer, with a salary of £1,000 a year.

When the works of the new line were at length approaching completion, it was necessary that a decision should be made as to the motive agency to be employed. Horse-power was now regarded as inadequate, and the choice lay between locomotive and stationary engines. If the latter had been selected, a rope would have been carried along the line, between the rails, and would, at certain intervals, have been coiled round large drums or cylinders, worked by fixed steam engines. To this rope the wagons containing passengers or goods would have been attached, and been drawn from station to station.

In the spring of 1829, the directors of the Company instructed Messrs. Stephenson, Locke, Walker, and Rastrick to collect information from the managers of the various railways of the country as to the comparative merits of locomotive and fixed engines; and those gentlemen visited the railways in the north of England, made most careful inquiries as to the methods adopted upon them, and gave the results in separate reports. These, on the whole, were in favour of stationary engines; but it was admitted that improvements were being effected in the construction of locomotives which made it probable that their efficiency would be materially increased. It was thought that, in the stationary system, accidents would be less frequent; but that when they occurred, they would be more injurious, as they would extend to the whole line; whereas in the locomotive system they would be confined to the engine that was disabled, and to its train. In the stationary system perfect uniformity from end to end must be preserved; in the locomotive system, one engine, with its train, by passing to the sidings, might be detained without inconvenience to others. Eventually it was decided that locomotive engines should be employed upon the line generally, but that two fixed engines should be placed at Rainhill and Sutton, to draw the locomotive engines, as well as the goods and carriages, up the inclines at these places. Hitherto the transport of passengers had not formed any special feature in these arrangements: it was now suggested that locomotives might possibly be so constructed as to convey passengers at a speed equal to that attained by coaches. Accordingly, in order to attract the attention of men of science to the subject, a premium of £500 was publicly offered for the best locomotive that could, under certain stipulations, be constructed; and though that amount was comparatively insignificant, it was obvious that on the successful engineer would devolve the construction of the entire "stud" of locomotives for the new line. The company required of the competing engines, that they should consume their own smoke; that, if they weighed six tons each, they should be capable of drawing a train of twenty tons weight, including the tender, at a speed of ten miles an hour, on a level railway; that each should have two safety-valves - one beyond the control of the engine-driver; and that their height, of the engine including the chimney, should not exceed fifteen feet. It was also announced that preference would be given to an engine of less weight, if it performed an equal amount of work; that the company was to be at liberty to test the machinery and that the price of the engine of the successful competitor was not to exceed £550.

Now that the results of railway enterprise are before the world, it is curious to observe how completely many of them were unforeseen. One distinguished writer, who resided in a coal country, and under whose windows locomotives had been working for years, has left his disclaimer on record in a published work. "It is far from my wish," said he, "to promulgate to the world that the ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic speculatist will be realized, and that we shall see engines travelling at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, and twenty miles an hour. Nothing can do more harm towards their general adoption and improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense"!

"As to those persons," said the Quarterly Review, "who speculate on making railways generally throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the canals, all the wagons, mails, and stagecoaches, post-chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance, by land and by water, we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice. The gross exaggerations ,of the powers of the locomotive steam-engine (or, to speak in plain English, the steam-carriage), may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification of those concerned. We should as soon expect the people to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate!"

The merits of the competing engines for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were determined by the directors, assisted by Messrs. Rastrick, Kennedy, and Nicholas Wood. On the day appointed, the Rocket, constructed by Mr. George Stephenson; the Novelty, by Messrs. Braithwaite & Ericson; and the Sans Pareil, by Mr. T. Hackworth, entered the lists, on a piece of railroad which had been selected between Liverpool and Manchester. In consequence of this space being little more than a mile and a half long, each engine had to travel the whole distance backwards and forwards ten times, making a journey of thirty miles. In order that the performances of each might be accurately tested, a judge was stationed at each end of the real running course, who noticed the exact time at which the engines passed ; the additional ground at each end being allowed to them for getting up their speed. When the Sans Pareil was examined, it was found not to have been constructed in precise accordance with the stipulations of the company, and therefore was, in strictness, disqualified; but it was resolved that a trial should be made, and that, if it displayed marked superiority, it should be recommended to the favourable consideration of the directors. On its eighth trip, however, the pump that supplied the water failed, and the accident terminated the experiment. The Novelty succeeded only in passing twice between the stations, the joints of the boiler then gave way. The Rocket having been supplied with water, was weighed, and the load of seventeen tons was then attached. This engine twice performed the distance of thirty miles; the first time in about two hours and a quarter, and the second in about two hours and seven minutes. Its greatest speed was at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and the average about fourteen. The marked superiority exhibited by the Rocket was owing to the admirable contrivance of the steam blast, and the use of a tubular boiler, pierced with twenty-five copper tubes, through which the heated air passed on its way to the chimney, the tubes being surrounded by the water of the boiler, an arrangement by which a very large surface was brought in contact with the fire, and a proportionate amount of steam generated. This engine, also, consumed less coal than the others, in the proportion of eleven to twenty-eight. The boiler consisted of a cylinder, six feet in length, having flat ends ; the chimney issued from one extremity, and to the other the fire-place was attached, which, externally, had the appearance of a square box.

The opinion has been confidently expressed to the writer, that after all the Sans Pareil was as good an engine as the Rocket. The accident that led to its withdrawment from the competition was trifling, and could now-a-days have been repaired in two minutes. " But it frightened the driver, and he gave in. It was a wonderful little engine," remarked our informant, "and for years did a deal of work. After the competition it was bought by the Bolton and Kenyon Junction Railway people; and it ran from Bolton by Kenyon Junction to Liverpool and back twice a day. When the traffic increased the runnings had to be rearranged, and it did not come farther than the junction, but ran the ten miles to and from Bolton from seven o'clock in the morning till about nine at night - 120 miles a day - for years. The Sans Pareil was only about five tons weight; it carried a tub of rainwater for the boiler, and three or four barrowloads of coke for the furnace. The boiler had one tube, a return tube. The fireman rode on the foot-plate, but the driver stood at the front end of his engine on the buffer-plank, and he had a seat on one side boarded in. But he was out in the open during rain, hail, or sunshine ; and this arrangement lasted as long as the engine lasted."

Mr. Stephenson, having thus been the successful competitor, was appointed to build the engines of the railway, and from that period to his death he conducted the engineering department of the company.

The construction of the works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway required immense and unremitting labour. Besides the embankment over Chat Moss, to which we shall have again to refer, there was the building of viaducts, the formation of cuttings and embankments, the erection of sixty three bridges, and the construction of a tunnel near Liverpool; besides the laying down of the permanent way, the erection of stations and warehouses, and the preparation of the engines, carriages, and wagons. The cost was as follows:

Cuttings and Embankments	£199,763
Chat Moss	27,719
Tunnel	47,788
Land	95,305
Fencing	10,202
Bridges	99,065
Formation of Road	20,568
Laying of Blocks and Sleepers	20,520
Laying of Rails (£ 12 10s. per ton)	60,912
Surveying, Law, Parliamentary, and Incidental	157,341
Total	£739,183

The opening of the line took place on the 15th of September, 1830, when the Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister Mr. Peel, Home Secretary, Mr. Huskisson, and a number of other distinguished persons, were to pass in the first train with the directors. A gay cortège of thirty-three carriages, accompanied by bands of music, started from Liverpool, amidst the acclamations of a countless multitude of observers, and with all the splendour of an ancient pageant. But soon the enjoyment of the scene was marred. While the engines were stopping to take in water at Parkside, Mr. Huskisson, with some other gentlemen, strolled along the line. As they were returning to their seats, another train of carriages came up. All ran for shelter; but, unhappily, Mr. Huskisson hurried to the side of the train, and, opening the door, attempted to enter; the door swung back at the moment - he fell to the ground, and was in an instant overthrown and crushed beneath the wheels of the advancing carriage. His thigh was fractured and mangled, and his own first expression, "I have met my death," proved too true, for he died that evening in the neighbouring parsonage of Eccles. The train passed on to Manchester without further accident; but the contemplated festivities were forgotten amidst the gloom occasioned by this tragedy.

Referring to the events of that memorable day, Lord Brougham said: " When I saw the difficulties of space, as it were, overcome; when I beheld a kind of miracle exhibited before my astonished eyes; when I surveyed masses pierced through, on which it was before hardly possible for man or beast to plant the sole of the foot, now covered with a road, and bearing heavy wagons, laden not only with innumerable passengers, but with merchandise of the largest bulk and heaviest weight; when I saw valleys made practicable by the bridges of ample height and length which spanned them; saw the steam railway traversing the surface of the water, at a distance of sixty or seventy feet perpendicular height; saw the rocks excavated, and the gigantic power of man penetrating through miles of the solid mass, and gaining a great, a lasting, an almost perennial conquest over the power of nature, by his skill and industry; when I contemplated all this, was it possible for me to avoid the reflections which crowded into my mind - not in praise of man's great success, not in admiration of the genius and perseverance he had displayed, or even of the courage he had shown in setting himself against the obstacles that matter offered to his course - no! but the melancholy reflections that all these prodigious efforts of the human race, so fruitful of praise, but so much more fruitful of lasting blessings to mankind, have forced a tear from my eye, by that unhappy casualty which deprived me of a friend and you of a representative."

"I know nothing," said Mr. George Leeman, M.P., many years afterwards, " comparable in the history of science to that triumphant march - for such it was - when the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened, with George Stephenson himself driving the Northumbrian engine; Robert Stephenson, his son, the Phoenix; Joseph Locke, the Rocket; Alcard, the Comet; Thomas Gooch, the Dart; and Frederick Swanwick, the Arrow - all young engineers of that day who had imbibed the spirit and practical genius of George Stephenson - men whose names, as well as those of others who have followed, have become part of our railway history - men who are to be found, not only in our own country, but who have gone forth over the whole earth, and have spread their names wherever civilization is to be found, and have themselves been the great pioneers of civilization itself."

Next day the business of the railway began. The Northumbrian drew a train of 130 passengers from Liverpool to Manchester in an hour and fifty minutes; and before the close of the week six trains were running daily. Instead of thirty stagecoaches that had plied between the two towns, there was only one left; but, instead of 500 passengers, there were 1,600. On one occasion one of the engines travelled thirty-one miles in less than an hour; and in February, 1831, the Samson accomplished the greater feat of conveying 164 tons from Liverpool to Manchester in two hours and a half, a load that would have required seventy horses to draw.

The advantages that accrued to the public from the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line were great, but it did not realize the precise results expected. The goods traffic had been estimated at £50,000 a year, but did not produce £3,000 ; and coals, which had been put at £20,000, yielded less than £1,000. The tariff of the canal was lowered to that of the railway, and speed and attention to the accommodation of customers were increased. The canal also possessed this important advantage over the railway, that, as it wound through Manchester it touched the warehouses of the merchants and manufacturers, and it terminated at the Liverpool docks, thereby avoiding expense in cartage. On the other hand, the passenger traffic, which had been calculated at £10,000, brought in tenfold that amount ; and instead of the passengers by the twenty or thirty coaches that had run between the two towns, there were more than 1,000 a day. The saving to manufacturers in the neighbourhood of Manchester, in the carriage of cotton alone, soon amounted to £20,000 a year; while some houses saved £500 per annum. New factories were established and new coal-pits were sunk near the line, giving increased employment ; and while reducing the claimants for parochial relief, the line paid one-fifth of the poor-rates in the parishes. The shareholders of the company, also, by the latter part of the year 1835, were receiving a dividend at the rate of 10 per cent. per annum.

The success of the Liverpool and Manchester line destroyed all doubt as to the possibilities of the railway system, and it was not long before its advantages were sought in other parts of the country. Branches were made from the main line to Warrington on the south, and to Bolton on the north, besides others of minor importance. At a later period, Birmingham was united to Warrington, and consequently with Liverpool and Manchester, by the Grand junction Railway.

It was subsequently resolved to form a line from London to Birmingham, and in 1830 two companies started on this enterprise. By one it was proposed to proceed through Oxford; by the other to pass near Coventry. Eventually the promoters of the two schemes decided to unite; the Coventry route was preferred; surveys were made of the country through which the line was to pass, estimates of the expense of the works were completed, and an application was made to Parliament for the necessary Acts. In 1832 the Bill was read a third time and passed in the Commons, but a few days afterwards it was thrown out in the Lords, on the ground that it was undesirable to force " the proposed railway through the land and property of so great a proportion of dissentient landowners and proprietors." In the following year the Bill was again brought before Parliament, and received the sanction of both Houses.