George Stephenson and Son George Stephenson & Son had been created on the last day of 1824, when Robert was in South America, with the same partners as Robert Stephenson & Co. Formed to carry out railway surveys and construction, George and Robert were both listed as chief engineers and responsible for Parliamentary business, and the list of assistant engineers included
Joseph Locke,
John Dixon,
Thomas Longridge Gooch and Thomas Storey. The company took on too much work that was delegated to inexperienced and underpaid men. Soon after he had returned from America, Robert took over responsibility for overseeing the construction of the
Canterbury & Whitstable Railway, and this opened on 3 May 1830 with a locomotive similar to
Rocket called
Invicta, supplied by Robert Stephenson & Co. He was also responsible for two branches of the L&MR, the Bolton & Leigh and
Warrington & Newton railways. The
Leicester & Swannington Railway was built to take coal from the Long Lane colliery to
Leicester, and Stephenson was appointed engineer. Robert Stephenson & Co. supplied
Planet type locomotives, but these were found underpowered and were replaced in 1833.
London and Birmingham Railway On 18 September 1830 George Stephenson & Son signed a contract to survey the route for the
London and Birmingham Railway. George recommended the route via
Coventry, rather than an alternative via
Oxford, but it was Robert that did most of the work; that same year Robert joined the
Institution of Civil Engineers as a member. There were two surveys in 1830–31 which met opposition from landowners and those who lived in market towns on the coach route that would be bypassed. Robert stood as the engineering authority when a bill was presented to Parliament in 1832, and it was suggested during cross-examination that he had allowed too steep an angle on the side of the cutting at Tring. Remembering that
Thomas Telford had cut through similar ground at
Dunstable, Robert left with Gooch in
post-chaise that night, and arrived at the cutting at dawn to find it the same angle he had proposed. He returned and was in the company solicitor's office at 10 am. That year the bill passed through the
Commons but was defeated in the
Lords. After a public campaign and another survey by Robert, the necessary act of Parliament, the
London and Birmingham Railway Act 1833 (
3 & 4 Will. 4. c. xxxvi), was obtained on 6 May 1833, and it was Robert, not yet 30 years old, that signed the contract on 20 September 1833 to build the railway from
Camden Town to
Birmingham. Robert was awarded a salary of £1,500 plus £200 expenses per annum, and he and Fanny moved from Newcastle to London. He drew up plans and made detailed work estimates, dividing the line into 30 contracts, most of which were placed by October 1835. A drawing office with 20–30 draughtsmen was established at the empty Eyre Arms Hotel in St John's Wood;
George Parker Bidder, whom Robert had first met at Edinburgh University, started working for him there.
Primrose Hill Tunnel, Wolverton embankment, and
Kilsby Tunnel all had engineering problems and were completed using direct labour. The line permitted by the 1833 act of Parliament terminated north of
Regent's Canal at Camden (near
Chalk Farm Underground station), as
Baron Southampton, who owned the land to the south, had strongly opposed the railway in the House of Lords in 1832. Later Southampton changed his mind, and authority was gained for an extension of the line south over Regent's Canal to
Euston Square. This incline, with a slope between 1 in 75 and 1 in 66, was worked by a stationary engine at Camden − trains from Euston were drawn up by rope, whereas carriages would descend under gravity. The oft repeated statement that the rope-working was necessary because locomotives of the period were insufficiently powerful was denied in 1839 by Peter Lecount, one of the assistant engineers. In fact the incline was worked by locomotives from the opening date of the southern section of the line, 20 July 1837, until 14 October 1837, also whenever the stationary engine or rope were stopped for repairs, then for Mail Trains from November 1843, and entirely from 15 July 1844, without any real increase in the power of the locomotives. The reason given by Lecount for the rope working was the London and Birmingham Railway Act 1833, by which he said they were 'restricted ... from running locomotive engines nearer London than Camden Town.' The L&BR opened ceremonially on 15 September 1838. Construction had taken four years and three months, but had cost £5.5 million against the original estimate of £2.4 million.
Great George Street In 1835 Robert travelled with his father to Belgium. George had been invited to advise
King Leopold on the
Belgian State Railway and was decorated with the
Order of Leopold; Robert returned with his father two years later to celebrate the opening of the railway between Brussels and
Ghent. By agreement with the L&BR, Robert was not permitted to work on any other engineering project while the railway was being built, but he was permitted to act as consultant. The
Stephenson valve gear was developed in 1842 by Stephenson employees in Newcastle. The six-coupled Stephenson
long-boiler locomotive design was developed into a successful freight locomotive but was unsuitable for sustained high speeds. The
Stanhope and Tyne Railroad Company (S&TR) had been formed in 1832 as a partnership to build a railway between the
lime kilns at Lanehead Farmhouse and the coal mines at
Consett in County Durham. The partners had decided to build a railway instead of upgrading the existing Pontop Waggonway, and commissioned Robert as surveyor and consulting engineer, and with
Thomas Elliot Harrison as acting engineer, construction started at
Stanhope in July 1832, and the line opened in 1834. Instead of obtaining an act of Parliament the company had agreed
wayleaves with the land owners, requiring payment of rent. The company borrowed heavily, and the debt grew to £440,000; by 1840 the lime kilns and the section from Stanhope to Carrhouse had closed, and the remaining Stanhope to Annfield section was losing money. A creditor sent a bill to Stephenson that the railway company could not pay, and Robert found that as the S&TR was not a
limited company, shareholders were liable for the debt. Fearing financial ruin Robert sought the advice of Parker, the insolvent railway company was dissolved on 5 February 1841 and a new limited company, the Pontop and South Shields Railway, was created to take over the line, Robert contributing £20,000. The southern section from Stanhope to Carrhouse was sold to the
Derwent Iron Company at Consett. The Great North of England Railway opened in 1841 to York with a railway connection at Darlington to London, and the
Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway (N&DJR) was formed to extend this line to Newcastle using five miles of the Pontop and South Shields Railway.
George Hudson, a railway financier known as the "Railway King", was the chairman of the N&DJR, and Robert was appointed engineer. Some work still needed to be completed on the L&BR, and the
North Midland Railway and lines from
Ostend to
Liège and
Antwerp to
Mons in Belgium required Robert's attention. In 1839 he visited France, Spain and Italy for three months to advise on railways, meeting the leading French railway engineer
Paulin Talabot. When he returned he was in demand, travelling the country, giving evidence to Parliament and was often asked to arbitrate in disputes between railway companies and their contractors. Robert, like his father, planned a railway line that avoided gradients as much as possible, extending the route if necessary, and proposed such a route for a line between London and
Brighton, but an alternative was selected. In August 1841 Robert was made Knight of the Order of Leopold for his improvements to locomotive engines. In the summer of 1842 Robert was away working on the N&DJR, in September in Cardiff and then in London working on a report for the French Railways. Fanny had been diagnosed with cancer two years previously and she grew seriously ill at the end of the month. She died on 4 October 1842. Her wish was that Robert remarry and have children, but he stayed single for the rest of his life. Her funeral was on 11 October, and Robert returned to work the following day, although he was to visit to her grave for many years.
Cambridge Square Robert grew to dislike the house on Haverstock Hill after the death of his wife. He moved to Cambridge Square in Westminster to be nearer to London's
gentlemen's clubs, but soon afterwards the house was damaged by fire and he lived in temporary accommodation for ten months. The Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway opened on 18 June 1844. A special train left Euston at 5:03 am, and travelling via Rugby,
Leicester,
Derby,
Chesterfield and
Normanton, reached
Gateshead, south of the
River Tyne, at 2:24 pm. Festivities were held in the Newcastle Assembly Rooms, where George was introduced as the man who had "constructed the first locomotive that ever went by its own spontaneous movement along iron rails", although there were people present who should have known better. When George had built the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester he had placed the rails apart, as this was the gauge of the railway at the Killingworth Colliery.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, chief engineer to the
Great Western Railway, had adopted the or
broad gauge, arguing that this would allow for higher speeds. Railways built with the different gauges met for the first time at
Gloucester in 1844, and although an inconvenience to passengers, this became a serious problem for goods, with delays and packages being lost at Gloucester. In 1845 a
Royal Commission was appointed and of the forty-six witnesses that gave evidence, only Brunel and his colleagues at the Great Western supported the broad gauge. Comparisons between a Stephenson locomotive between York and Darlington and one built by Brunel between Paddington and Didcot showed the broad gauge locomotive to be superior, but the commissioners found in favour of a gauge, due in part to the greater number of route miles that had already been laid. Brunel also supported propelling trains using the
atmospheric system. Robert sent assistants to the
Dalkey Atmospheric Railway in Ireland to observe, but advised against its use as the failure of one pump would bring traffic to a stop. Robert's stepmother Elizabeth had died in 1845. That year George was returning ill from a trip to Spain and suffered an attack of
pleurisy in the cabin of the packet bound for Southampton. He retired to
Tapton House, near
Chesterfield, and married his housekeeper early in 1848. Later that year he died on 12 August following a second attack of pleurisy, and was buried in Trinity churchyard, in Chesterfield. George had been the President of the newly formed
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and Robert took over that role until 1853.
Bridge builder after the collapse crossing the
Menai Strait, c. 1852. The
Chester & Holyhead Railway received its permission in 1845, and Robert became the chief engineer and designed an iron bridge to cross the
River Dee just outside
Chester. Completed in September 1846, it was inspected by the Board of Trade Inspector, Major-General Paisley, on 20 October. On 24 May 1847 the bridge gave way under a passenger train; the locomotive and driver made it across, but the tender and carriages fell into the river. Five people died. Conder attended the inquest at Chester: he recounts that Paisley was so agitated he was nearly unable to speak; Robert was pale and haggard and the foreman of the jury seemed determined to get a verdict of manslaughter. Robert had been prepared to admit liability but was persuaded to present a defence that the cast-iron girder could only have fractured because the tender had derailed from a broken wheel. Robert was supported by expert witnesses such Locke,
Charles Vignoles, Gooch and Kennedy, and a verdict of accidental death was returned. Robert never used long cast-iron girders again, and a Royal Commission was later set up to look at the use of cast iron by the railway companies. The
Britannia Bridge was built for the Chester & Holyhead Railway to cross the
Menai Strait from Wales to the island of
Anglesey. The bridge needed to be long, and the
Admiralty insisted on a single span above the water. Problems during the launch of the wrought-iron steamship
Prince of Wales meant that she fell with her hull not supported for , but was undamaged. Robert was inspired by this and with
William Fairbairn and
Eaton Hodgkinson designed a wrought-iron tubular bridge large enough for a train to pass through. They experimented with models in 1845 and 1846 and decided to use similar design on the
Conwy Bridge to gain experience. The first Conwy tube was floated into position in March 1848 and lifted the following month, allowing a single line railway to open on 1 May. The second tube was lifted into position that October; on these days Brunel was with Robert supporting his friend. The positioning of the first of the four tubes for the Britannia Bridge was carried out in June 1849, when both Brunel and Locke were with Robert, and this was lifted into position in October. The second tube was in lifted into place 7 January 1850, a single line was open to public traffic through these tubes 18 March 1850, and the second line was open 19 October. in
Newcastle upon Tyne, with a road bridge below the railway line, both still in use today The route north of Newcastle to
Edinburgh along the coast, via
Morpeth and
Berwick, had been recommended by George in 1838, and Hudson promoted this route for the
Newcastle and Berwick Railway in 1843. The required act of Parliament, the
Newcastle and Berwick Railway Act 1845 (
8 & 9 Vict. c. clxiii), was given
royal assent in 1845, included a high level road and rail bridge across the Tyne at Newcastle and the
Royal Border Bridge across the
Tweed at Berwick. The
High Level Bridge is long and high and made from cast-iron bows held taut by horizontal wrought-iron strings. The first train crossed the Tyne on a temporary wooden structure in August 1848; the iron bridge was formally opened by
Queen Victoria in September 1849, Robert having been elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in June. The bridge across the Tweed is a 28-arch stone viaduct, and was opened by the Queen on 29 August 1850. At the celebratory dinner Robert sat beside the Queen; he had just been offered a
knighthood, but had declined. ==Politics==