and Darlington railway, all the more gladly now that he knew it was to
be worked by means of his own adopted child, the 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