EARLY RAILWAYS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16347, 23 May 1927, Page 3

EARLY RAILWAYS

STEPHENSON AND THE E-AST COAST ROUTE. Fifteen autograph letters from George Stephenson, written between 1824 and 1846, the beginning period of railway construction, are to be sold at Messrs. Sotheby’s. They are addressed to Michael Longridge, of Bedlington Iron Works, Morpeth, Northumberland. Describing, June 1824, a visit to prospect the intended Birmingham line, the great engineer says: “Some days . 14 hours without either bread- or water, rising at half past three and working till nine, 10 and sometimes 12 before we got to our quarters. . Of the survey of the proposed Liverpool railway, October of the same year, Stephenson writes: “The lords of the land fn this neighborhood are most desperately against us.” Fourteen years later came the question of the railway between Newcastle and Berwick, forming part of the East Coast route to Scotland. Stephenson favored the coast route eventually adopted. A letter written in August, 1832, contains an interesting reflection on this point of view: “ . .. . There does not exist any doubt in my mind as to whether the Coast Lino is the best or not, and I believe that the Midland districts will be belter accommodated by tho coast than the inland line, by taking collateral branches from the main line up the various rivers into the interior. You know that my system has always beeh, in main lines, to keep the line m a low country so far as to allow of branches diverging into high country if such should exist.