336 YOKK AND NORTH MIDLAND. CHAP. XVI. 



four miles, connecting it with the small market-town of 

 Pickering. The York citizens were more ambitious, 

 and agitated the question of a locomotive line to connect 

 them with the town of Leeds. Mr. Stephenson recom- 

 mended them to connect their line with the Midland at 

 Normanton, and they adopted his advice. The Com- 

 pany was formed, the shares were at once subscribed 

 for, and Stephenson appointed his pupil and assistant, 

 Mr. Swan wick, to lay out the line in October, 1835. 

 The Act was obtained in the following year, and the 

 works were constructed without difficulty. 



As the best proof of his conviction that the York and 

 North Midland would prove a good investment, Mr. 

 Stephenson invested in it a considerable portion of his 

 savings, being a subscriber for 420 shares ; and he also 

 took some trouble in persuading several wealthy gentle- 

 men in London and elsewhere to purchase shares in the 

 concern. The interest thus taken in the line by the 

 engineer was on more than one occasion specially 

 mentioned by Mr. Hudson, then Lord Mayor of York, 

 as an inducement to other persons of capital to join the 

 undertaking ; and had it not afterwards been encumbered 

 and overlaid by comparatively useless, and therefore 

 profitless branches, in the projection of which Mr. 

 Stephenson had no part, the sanguine expectations 

 which he early formed of the paying qualities of that 

 railway would have been more than realised. 



There was one branch, however, of the York and 

 North Midland Line in which he took an anxious 

 interest, and of which he may be pronounced the 

 projector the branch to Scarborough ; which proved 

 to 'be one of the most profitable parts of the railway. 

 He was so satisfied of its value, that, at a meeting of 

 the York and North Midland proprietors, he volunteered 

 his gratuitous services as engineer until the Company 

 was formed, in addition to subscribing largely to the 

 undertaking. At that meeting he took an opportunity 



