400 EAST COAST EOUTE TO SCOTLAND, CHAP. XVIII. 



which he had invested in the shares of various railways 

 until his death, when they were at once sold out by his 

 son, though at a great depreciation on their original cost. 



One of the hardest battles fought between the Stephen- 

 sons and Brunei was for the railway between Newcastle 

 and Berwick, forming part of the great East Coast route 

 to Scotland. As early as 1836, George Stephensoii had 

 surveyed two lines to connect Edinburgh with New- 

 castle : one by Berwick and Dunbar along the coast, 

 and the other, more inland, by Carter Fell, up the vale 

 of the Gala, to the northern capital. Two years later, 

 he made a further examination of the intervening 

 country, and again reported more decidedly than before 

 in favour of the coast line. The inland route, however, 

 was not without its advocates : Stephenson' s old friend, 

 Nicholas Wood, heading the opposition to his proposed 

 Coast railway. But both projects lay dormant for several 

 years longer, until the completion of the Midland and 

 other main lines as far north as Newcastle had the effect 

 of again reviving the subject of the extension of the 

 route as far as Edinburgh. 



On the 18th of June, 1844, the Newcastle and Dar- 

 lington line an important link of the great main high- 

 way to the north was completed and publicly opened, 

 thus connecting the Thames and the Tyne by a continuous 

 line of railway. On that day Mr. Stephenson and a 

 distinguished party of railway men travelled by express 

 train from London to Newcastle in about nine hours. 

 It was a great event, and was worthily celebrated. The 

 population of Newcastle held holiday ; and a banquet 

 given in the Assembly Rooms the same evening assumed 

 the form of an ovation to Mr. Stephenson and his son. 

 Thirty years before, in the capacity of a workman, he 

 had been labouring at the construction of his first loco- 

 motive in the immediate neighbourhood. By slow and 

 laborious steps he had worked his way on, dragging the 

 locomotive into notice, and raising himself in public 



