following year.  The line was to be 112-1/2 miles long and estimated to cost L2,500,000, but the real cost amounted to L4,592,700, of which L72,868 18s. 10d. was spent in obtaining the Act alone.  The line was opened in sections as completed, the first train running from Euston to Boxmoor, 24-1/2 miles, on July 20, 1837.  The average daily number of persons using the line during the first month was 1,428, the receipts being at the rate of L153 per day.  On April 9, 1838, the trains reached Rugby, and on Aug. 14, the line was completed to Daddeston Row, the directors taking a trial trip on the 20th.  There were only seventeen stations on the whole line, over which the first passenger train ran on Sept. 17.—­The prospectus of the Grand Junction Railway (for Liverpool and Manchester) was issued May 7, 1830, and the line from Vauxhall Station to Newton (where it joined the Manchester and Liverpool line) was opened July 4, 1837.  The importance of this line of communication was shown by the number of passengers using it during the first nine weeks, 18,666 persons travelling to or from Liverpool, and 7,374 to or from Manchester, the receipts for that period being L41,943.—­The Birmingham branch of the South Staffordshire Railway was opened Nov. 1, 1847; the Birmingham and Shrewsbury line, Nov. 12, 1849; and between Dudley and Walsall May 1, 1850.  The Stour Valley line was partially brought into use (from Monument Lane) Aug. 19, 1851, the first train running clear through to Wolverhampton July 1, 1852.  The line to Sutton Coldfield was opened June 2, 1862, and the Harborne line (for which the Act was obtained in 1866) was opened Aug. 10, 1874.  The Act for the construction of the Birmingham and Lichfield line, being a continuation of the Sutton Coldfield Railway, passed June 23, 1874; it was commenced late in October, 1881, and it will shortly be in use.  The Bill for the Dudley and Oldbury Junction line passed July 15, 1881.  A new route from Leamington to Birmingham was opened in Sept. 1884, shortening the journey to London.

Midland.—­The Derby and Birmingham Junction line was opened through from Lawley Street Aug. 12th, 1839.  The first portion of the Birmingham and Gloucester line, between Barnt Green and Cheltenham, was opened July 1, 1840, coaches running from here to Barnt Green to meet the trains until Dec. 15, 1840, when the line was finished to Camp Hill, the Midland route being completed and opened Feb. 10, 1842.  The first sod was cut for the West Suburban line Jan. 14, 1873, and it was opened from Granville Street to King’s Norton April 3, 1876.  This line is now being doubled and extended from Granville Street to New Street, at an estimated cost of L280,400, so that the Midland will have a direct run through the town.