This fine work is principally of brick, with stone facings. It consists of nine arches of fifty feet span each. The massive piers are supported on two hundred piles driven deep into the soil; and they rise to a great height,—the coping of the parapet being seventy feet above the level of the valley, in which flow the Sankey brook and canal. Its total cost was about £45,000.
By the end of 1828 the directors found they had expended £460,000 on the works, and that they were still far from completion. They looked at the loss of interest on this
large investment, and began to grumble at the delay. They desired to see their capital becoming productive; and in the spring of 1829 they urged the engineer to push on the works with increased vigour. Mr. Cropper, one of the directors, who took an active interest in their progress, said to Stephenson one day, “Now, George, thou must get on with the railway, and have it finished without further delay; thou must really have it ready for opening by the first day of January next.” “Consider the heavy character of the works, sir, and how much we have been delayed by the want of money, not to speak of the wetness of the weather: it is impossible.” “Impossible!” rejoined Cropper; “I wish I could get Napoleon to thee—he would tell thee there is no such word as ‘impossible’ in the vocabulary.” “Tush!” exclaimed Stephenson, with warmth; “don’t speak to me about Napoleon! Give me men, money, and materials, and I will do what Napoleon couldn’t do—drive a railway from Liverpool to Manchester over Chat Moss!”
The works made rapid progress in the course of the year 1829. Double sets of labourers were employed on Chat Moss and at other points, by night and day, the night shifts working by torch and fire light; and at length, the work advancing at all points, the directors saw their way to the satisfactory completion of the undertaking.
It may well be supposed that Mr. Stephenson’s time was fully occupied in superintending the extensive, and for the most part novel works, connected with the railway, and that even his extraordinary powers of labour and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four years that they were in progress. Almost every detail in the plans was directed and arranged by himself. Every bridge, from the simplest to the most complicated, including the then novel structure of the “skew bridge,” iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the machinery for working the tunnel at the Liverpool end, had to be thought out by his own head, and reduced to definite plans under his own eyes. Besides all
this, he had to design the working plant in anticipation of the opening of the railway. He must be prepared with waggons, trucks, and carriages, himself superintending their manufacture. The permanent road, turntables, switches, and crossings,—in short, the entire structure and machinery of the line, from the turning of the first sod to the running of the first train of carriages upon the railway,—were executed under his immediate supervision. And it was in the midst of this vast accumulation of work and responsibility that the battle of the locomotive engine had to be fought,—a battle, not merely against material difficulties, but against the still more trying obstructions of deeply-rooted mistrust and prejudice on the part of a considerable minority of the directors.
He had no staff of experienced assistants,—not even a staff of draughtsmen in his office,—but only a few pupils learning their business; and he was frequently without even their help. The time of his engineering inspectors was fully occupied in the actual superintendence of the works at different parts of the line; and he took care to direct all their more important operations in person. The principal draughtsman was Mr. Thomas Gooch, a pupil he had brought with him from Newcastle. “I may say,” writes Mr. Gooch, “that nearly the whole of the working and other drawings, as well as the various land-plans for the railway, were drawn by my own hand. They were done at the Company’s office in Clayton Square during the day, from instructions supplied in the evenings by Mr. Stephenson, either by word of mouth, or by little rough hand-sketches on letter-paper. The evenings were also generally devoted to my duties as secretary, in writing (mostly from his own dictation) his letters and reports, or in making calculations and estimates. The mornings before breakfast were not unfrequently spent by me in visiting and lending a helping hand in the tunnel and other works near Liverpool,—the untiring zeal and perseverance of George Stephenson never for an instant flagging
and inspiring with a like enthusiasm all who were engaged under him in carrying forward the works.” [189]
The usual routine of his life at this time—if routine it might be called—was, to rise early, by sunrise in summer and before it in winter, and thus “break the back of the day’s work” by mid-day. While the tunnel under Liverpool was in progress, one of his first duties in a morning before breakfast was to go over the various shafts, clothed in a suitable dress, and inspect their progress at different points; on other days he would visit the extensive workshops at Edgehill, where most of the “plant” for the line was in course of manufacture. Then, returning to his house, in Upper Parliament Street, Windsor, after a hurried breakfast, he would ride along the works to inspect their progress, and push them on with greater energy where needful. On other days he would prepare for the much less congenial engagement of meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favourite horse, brought by him from Newcastle, called “Bobby,”—so tractable that, with his
rider on his back, he would walk up to a locomotive with the steam blowing off, and put his nose against it without shying. “Bobby,” saddled and bridled, was brought to Mr. Stephenson’s door betimes in the morning; and mounting him, he would ride the fifteen miles to Sankey, putting up at a little public house which then stood upon the banks of the canal. There he had his breakfast of “crowdie,” which he made with his own hands. It consisted of oatmeal stirred into a basin of hot water,—a sort of porridge,—which was supped with cold sweet milk. After this frugal breakfast, he would go upon the works, and remain there, riding from point to point for the greater part of the day. When he returned before mid-day, he examined the pay-sheets in the different departments, sent in by the assistant engineers, or by the foremen of the workshops. To all these he gave his most careful personal attention, requiring when necessary a full explanation of the items.