The first thing done was to form a footpath of ling or heather along the proposed road, on which a man might walk without risk of sinking. A single line of temporary railway was then laid down, formed of ordinary cross-bars about 3 feet long and an inch square, with holes punched through them at the ends and nailed down to temporary sleepers. Along this way ran the waggons in which were conveyed the materials requisite to form the permanent road. These waggons carried about a ton each, and they were propelled by boys running behind them along the narrow iron rails. The boys became so expert that they would run the 4 miles across at the rate of 7 or 8 miles an hour without missing a step; if they had done so, they would have sunk in many places up to their middle. A comparatively slight extension of the bearing surface being found sufficient to enable the bog to bear this temporary line, the circumstance was a source of increased confidence and hope to our engineer in proceeding with the formation of the permanent roadway alongside.
The digging of drains had been proceeding for some time along each side of the intended line; but they filled up almost as soon as dug, the sides flowing in, and the bottom rising up. It was only in some of the drier parts of the bog that a depth of three or four feet could be reached. The surface-ground between the drains, containing the intertwined roots of heather and long grass, was left untouched, and upon this was spread branches of trees and hedge-cuttings. In the softest places, rude gates or hurdles, some 8 or 9 feet long by 4 feet wide, interwoven with
heather, were laid in double thicknesses, their ends overlapping each other; and upon this floating bed was spread a thin layer of gravel, on which the sleepers, chairs, and rails were laid in the usual manner. Such was the mode in which the road was formed upon the Moss.
It was found, however, after the permanent way had been thus laid, that there was a tendency to sinking at those parts where the bog was softest. In ordinary cases, where a bank subsides, the sleepers are packed up with ballast or gravel; but in this case the ballast was dug away and removed in order to lighten the road, and the sleepers were packed instead with cakes of dry turf or bundles of heath. By these expedients the subsided parts were again floated up to the level, and an approach was made towards a satisfactory road. But the most formidable difficulties were encountered at the centre and towards the edges of the Moss; and it required no small degree of ingenuity and perseverance on the part of the engineer successfully to overcome them.
The Moss, as already observed, was highest in the centre, and it there presented a sort of hunchback with a rising and falling gradient. At that point it was found necessary to cut deeper drains in order to consolidate the ground between them on which the road was to be formed. But, as at other places, the deeper the cutting the more rapid was the flow of fluid bog into the drain, the bottom rising up almost as fast as it was removed. To meet this emergency, numbers of empty tar-barrels were brought from Liverpool; and as soon as a few yards of drain were dug, the barrels were laid down end to end, firmly fixed to each other by strong slabs laid over the joints, and nailed. They were then covered over with clay, and thus formed an underground sewer of wood instead of bricks. This expedient was found to answer the purpose intended, and the road across the centre of the Moss having been so prepared, it was then laid with the permanent materials.
The greatest difficulty was, however, experienced in forming
an embankment upon the edge of the bog at the Manchester end. Moss as dry as it could be cut, was brought up in small waggons, by men and boys, and emptied so as to form an embankment; but the bank had scarcely been raised three or four feet in height, when the stuff broke through the heathery surface of the bog and sank out of sight. More moss was brought up and emptied with no better result; and for weeks the filling was continued without any visible embankment having been made. It was the duty of the resident engineer to proceed to Liverpool every fortnight to obtain the wages for the workmen employed under him; and on these occasions he was required to colour up, on a section drawn to a working scale suspended against the wall of the directors’ room, the amount of excavation and embankment from time to time executed. But on many of these occasions, Mr. Dixon had no progress whatever to show for the money expended on the Chat Moss embankment. Sometimes, indeed, the visible work done was less than it had appeared a fortnight or a month before!
The directors now became seriously alarmed, and feared that the evil prognostications of the eminent engineers were about to be fulfilled. The resident engineer was even called upon to supply an estimate of the cost of forming an embankment of solid stuff throughout, as also of the cost of piling the roadway, and in effect constructing a four mile viaduct of timber across the Moss, from twenty to thirty feet high from the foundation. The expense appalled the directors, and the question arose, whether the work was to be proceeded with or abandoned!
Mr. Stephenson afterwards described the alarming position of affairs at a public dinner at Birmingham (23rd December, 1837), on the occasion of a piece of plate being presented to his son, upon the completion of the London and Birmingham Railway. He related the anecdote, he said, for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of those who heard him the necessity of perseverance.
“After working for weeks and weeks,” said he, “in filling