(HAP. XII. STEPHENSON'S GREAT LABOURS. 235 



enabling deviations and alterations to be made ; one to 

 improve the curves and shorten the line near Rainhill, 

 and the other to carry the line across the Irwell into 

 the town of Manchester. Thanks to the energy of the 

 engineer, the industry of his labourers, and the improved 

 supply of money by the directors, the railway made 

 rapid progress in the course of the year 1829. Double 

 sets of labourers were employed on Chat Moss and at 

 other points, in carrying on the works by night and 

 day, the night shifts working by torch and fire light; 

 and at length, the work advancing at all points, the 

 directors saw their way to the satisfactory completion of 

 the undertaking. 



It may well be supposed that Mr. Stephenson's time 

 was fully occupied in superintending the extensive, and 

 for the most part novel works, connected with .the rail- 

 way, and that even his extraordinary powers of labour 

 and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four 

 years that they were in progress. Almost every detail 

 in the plans was directed and arranged by himself. 

 Every bridge, from the simplest to the most compli- 

 cated, including the then novel structure of the " skew 

 bridge," iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the 

 machinery for working the tunnel at the Liverpool end, 

 had to be thought out by his own head, and reduced 

 to definite plans under his own eyes. Besides all this, 

 he had to design the working plant in anticipation of 

 the opening of the railway. He must be prepared 

 with waggons, trucks, and carriages, himself superin- 

 tending their manufacture. The permanent road, turn- 

 tables, switches, and crossings, in short, the entire 

 structure and machinery of the line, from the turning of 

 the first sod to the running of the first train of carriages 

 upon the railway, went on under his immediate super- 

 vision. And it was in the midst of this vast accumula- 

 tion of work and responsibility that the battle of the 



