Locomotives had been used only on the
tram-roads of the collieries, and by the time
when Stephenson built his second engine were
generally abandoned as failures. Stephenson
alone stayed in the field and did not care who
said that there would be at Killingworth "a
terrible blow-up some day." He had already
made up his mind that the perfection of a
travelling engine would be half lost if it did
not run on a perfected rail. Engine and rail
he spoke of, even then, as "man and wife,"
and his contrivances for the improvement of
the locomotive always went hand in hand
with his contrivances for the improvement of
the road on which it ran. We need not
follow the mechanical details. In his work
at the rail and engine he made progress in
his own way, inch by inch; every new
locomotive built by him contained improvements
on its predecessor; every time he laid down
a fresh rail he added some new element of
strength and firmness to it. The Killingworth
Colliery Railway was the seed from
which sprang the whole European—and now
more than European—system of railway
intercourse. While systems and theories
rose and fell round about, George Stephenson
kept his little line in working order,
made it pay, and slowly advanced in the
improvement of the rails and engines used upon
it. When it had been five years at work, the
owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county
of Durham, invited Stephenson to act as
engineer for them in laying down an equally
efficient and much longer line. Its length
was to be eight miles, and it would cross one
of the highest hills in the district: Stephenson
put his locomotive on the level ground,
worked the inclines with stationary engines,
showed how full waggons descending an
incline might be used as a power for the
drawing up of empty ones, and in three years
completed successfully a most interesting and
novel series of works.

In those days there was talk of railroads to
be worked by horse-power, or any better
power, if better there were; but at any rate
level roads laid down with rails for the
facility of traffic, were projected between
Stockton and Darlington, between Liverpool
and Manchester, and between other places.

The Killingworth Railway was seven years
old, the Hetton line then being in course of
construction; and George Stephenson was
forty years old when "one day," writes Mr.
Smiles, "about the end of the year eighteen
hundred and twenty-one, two strangers
knocked at the door of Mr. Pease's house
in Darlington" (Mr. Pease was the head
promoter of the railway between Darlington
and Stockton), "and the message was brought
to him that some, persons from Killingworth
wanted to speak with him. They were invited
in; on which one of the visitors introduced
himself as Nicholas Wood, viewer at
Killingworth; and then, turning to his
companion, he introduced him as George Stephenson
of the same place." George had also a
letter of introduction from the manager at
Killingworth, and came as a person who had
had experience in the laying out of railways,
to offer his services. He had walked to
Darlington, with here and there a lift upon
a coach, to see whether he could not get for
his locomotive a fair trial, and for himself a
step of advancement in life, upon Mr. Pease's
line. He told his wish in the strong
Northumbrian dialect of his district; as for
himself, he said, he was "only the engine-wright
at Killingworth, that's what he was."

Mr. Pease liked him, told him his plans,
which were all founded on the use of horse-
power, he being satisfied "that a horse upon
an iron road would draw ten tons for one on
a common road, and that before long the
railway would become the King's Highway."
Stephenson boldly declared that his locomotive
was worth fifty horses, and that moving
engines would in course of time supersede
all horse-power upon railroads. "Come
over," he said, "to Killingworth, and see
what my Blutcher can do; seeing is believing,
sir." Mr. Pease went, saw, and believed.
Stephenson was appointed engineer to the
Company, at a salary of three hundred a-
year. The Darlington line was constructed
in accordance with his survey. His travelling
engine ran upon it for the first time on
the twenty-seventh of September, eighteen
hundred and twenty-five, in sight of an
immense concourse of people, and attained, in
some parts of its course, a speed—then
unexampled—of twelve miles an hour. When
Stephenson afterwards became a famous man
he forgot none of his old friends. He visited
even poor cottagers who had done a chance
kindness to him. Mr. Pease will transmit to
his descendants a gold watch, inscribed—
"Esteem and gratitude: from George
Stephenson to Edward Pease."

It was while the Stockton and Darlington
line was in progress that George Stephenson
proposed establishing a locomotive factory,
and training a body of mechanics skilled to
the new work, at Newcastle. The thousand
pounds given to him by the coal-owners for
his invention of the safety-lamp, he could
advance. Mr. Pease and another friend
advanced five hundred each, and so the
Newcastle Engine Factory was founded.

With what determined perseverance Mr.
Stephenson upheld the cause of the locomotive
in connection with the proposed Liverpool
and Manchester line: how he did
cheaply what all the regular engineers
declared impossible or ruinous, in carrying
that line over Chat-Moss, persevering, when
all who were about him had confessed
despair, and because he had made good his
boldest promises in every one case: how he
was at last trusted in the face of public
ridicule, upon the merits of the locomotive
also: how after the line was built, at the
public competition of light engines constructed