276 FIRST JOURNEY ON CHAT MOSS. CHAP. XIV. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OPENING OF THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER KAILWAY, AND 

 EXTENSION OF THE EAILWAY SYSTEM. 



THE directors of the Railway now began to see daylight ; 

 and they derived encouragement from the skilful manner 

 in which their engineer had overcome the principal 

 difficulties of the undertaking. He had formed a solid 

 road over Chat Moss, and thus achieved one " impossi- 

 bility ; " and he had constructed a locomotive that 

 could run at a speed of thirty miles an hour, thus 

 vanquishing a still more formidable difficulty. 



About the middle of 1829 the tunnel at Liverpool was 

 ' finished ; and being lit up with gas, it was publicly 

 exhibited one day in each week. Many thousand per- 

 sons visited it at the charge of a shilling a head, the 

 fund thus raised being appropriated partly to the support 

 of the families of labourers who had been injured upon 

 the line, and partly in contributions to the Manchester 

 and Liverpool infirmaries. As promised by the en- 

 gineer, a single line of way was completed over Chat 

 Moss by the 1st of January, 1830 ; and on that day, 

 the " Rocket " with a carriage full of directors, engi- 

 neers, and their friends, passed along the greater part 

 of the road between Liverpool and Manchester. Mr. 

 Stephenson continued to direct his close attention to 

 the improvement of the details of the locomotive, every 

 successive trial of which proved more satisfactory. In 

 this department, he had the benefit of the able and 

 unremitting assistance of his son, who, in the workshops 

 at Newcastle, directly superintended the construction of 

 the new engines required for the public working of the 



