Page:Engines and men- the history of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. A survey of organisation of railways and railway locomotive men (IA enginesmenhistor00rayniala).pdf/44

 citizens were proud to hold railway "interests." From 1840 to 1850 was a time of absorption by bigger concerns, of re-fashioning and connecting up, and this process again involved keen competition, ways weird and devious, and many appeals to Parliamentary Committees. A railway mania had seized those with money to spare, and quite a fevered gambling took place. In one year, 1846, 272 Acts were passed for new lines. At that time there were several Midland Companies—the Midland Counties, the North Midland, the West Midland—all later absorbed in the Midland. There were two North Westerns—the London & North Western and the "Little" North Western. The competition for towns and routes was of a bitter and remorseless character, and contract work was rushed. On one stretch of the Derby to Nottingham line 3,500 men and 328 horses were working full speed, and by June, 1838, 4,000 men were working on the laying of that line, which was opened on May 30th, 1839, amid the pealing of bells. The extension up the Erewash Valley from Trent to Chesterfield caused great heartburning between companies, and the countryside near Clay Cross was lit up at night by the camp fires of thousands of navvies and platelayers.

It was in 1835 that George Stephenson and his secretary set out in a stage coach from Derby to drive to Leeds, to find the best route for a railway line. He spent a long time over that rugged journey of 72 miles, walking into the fields, examining geological formations, and finding alternative routes. He bad the valleys of the Derwent, Amber, Rother, Don, Dearne, Calder, and Aire to negotiate, and he had the option of taking a high and costly route by Sheffield, Barnsley and Wakefield. This involved enormous costs in earthworks, owing to bad gradients, and Stephenson preferred to keep east of them, to connect them by branches. His advice was taken, after much discussion, and this North Midland, as it was called, was always a favourite line of his.

The same search and survey for routes, the same laying of tracks and sites for goods and passenger stations, was proceeding in every part of Great Britain. At every point of the compass were railway