One thing which hampered Stephenson not a little was a want of the right sort of workmen—quick-minded, skilful mechanics, who could put his ideas into the right shape. The labour of originating so much we can never know. He had nothing to copy from, and nobody's experience to go by. Happily he proved equal to his task. We can readily imagine his anxiety as the work progressed. Hope and fear must have in turn raised and depressed him. Not that he had any doubts in regard to the final issue of the grand experiment of railroads—they must go.
Dining one day at a small roadside house with Robert and John Dixon, after walking over the route, then nearly completed, "Lads," he said, "I think you will live to see the day when railroads will be the great highway for the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working-man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot. There are big difficulties in the way, I know; but it will surely come to pass. I can hardly hope to live to see that day, much as I should like to; for I know how slow all human progress is, and how hard it is to make men believe in the locomotive, even after our ten years' success in Killingworth."
While the father roughed it through, Robert's health failed. His close application to business made sad inroads upon a frame naturally more delicate than his father's, and an offer to go out and superintend some mining operations in South America was thankfully accepted, in the hope that a sea voyage and less exciting labours might restore him.
Robert shortly sailed; and his father pushed on alone, with that brave spirit which carried him through many a darker hour.
On the 27th of September the Stockton and Darlington railway was finished and opened. A great many came to see the new mode of travelling, which had proved a fruitful subject of talk, far and near, for many months: some to rejoice; some to see the bubble burst; some with wonder, not knowing what to think; some with determined hostility. The opposition was strong—old England against young England—the counter currents of old and new ideas.
The road ran from Stockton to Darlington, a distance of twelve miles, and thence to the Etherly collieries; in all thirty-two miles.
Four steam-engines were employed, and two stationary engines, to hoist the trains over two hills on the route. The locomotives were of six-horse power, and went at the rate of five or six miles an hour. Slow as this was, it was regarded with wonder. A "travelling engine" seemed almost a miracle. One day a race came off between a locomotive and a coach running on the common highway, and it was regarded as a great triumph that the former reached Stockton first, leaving the coach one hundred yards behind.
The road was built for a freight road, to convey lime, coal, and bricks from the mines and kilns in the interior to the seaboard for shipment abroad. Carrying passengers was not thought of. Enterprise, however, in this direction took a new start. A company was soon formed to run two coaches on the rails between Darlington and Stockton by horse-power. Each coach accommodated six inside passengers, and from fifteen to twenty outside; was drawn by one horse, and went at the rate of nine miles an hour.
"We seated ourselves," said a traveller of those days, "on the top of the Defence coach, and started from Stockton, highly interested with the novelty of the scene, and of this new and extraordinary conveyance. Nothing could be more surprising than the rapidity and smoothness of the motion." Yet the coach was without springs, and jerked and jolted over the joints of the rails with a noise like the clinking of a millhopper.