GEORGE STEPHENSON. 105 



trains at high speed, for which he has decided not to take out 

 a patent, presenting it freely to the consideration of the railway 

 world. 



In 1824 an Act was obtained for the construction of the 

 Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, from Palace Craig, in 

 Lanarkshire, to the banks of the canal at Kirkintilloch, in 

 Dumbartonshire. The line was completed and opened a year 

 after the Stockton and Darlington, namely, in September, 1826, 

 and was at first used only for the conveyance of coal for shipment 

 at the canal. The waggons were drawn by steam locomotives. 

 As it was found that passenger traffic could be cultivated, the 

 directors, early in 1827, added to most of the coal-trains a 

 coach for the conveyance of passengers, with considerable profit 

 to the company. The Ballochney Railway, opened in 1828, 

 also had some of its trains drawn by locomotives ; and here, 

 too, the addition of a passenger carriage proved a source of 

 convenience to the public and of profit to the company. 



The Canterbury and Whitstaple was the fourth completed 

 line in the kingdom which used locomotives and carried 

 passengers, and perhaps from the fact that it did not, any more 

 than the two Scotch lines above named, attract much public 

 attention, its story is deserving of record now. The Act for 

 the formation of the line was got in 1825, and with a capital of 

 ;^3 5,000, it was proposed to make a line six and a quarter 

 miles long, with heavy gradients, and a tunnel half-a-mile long. 

 This proved inadequate, and subsequent Acts were obtained in 

 1827 and 1828 to raise new capital. As even these additions 

 proved too little, loans and mortgages were resorted to, and it 

 was only in May, 1830, that the public opening took place. 

 Worked on a series of inclined planes, partly by locomotives 

 and partly with fixed engines, the Canterbury and Whitstaple 



