On the 1st July, 1840, this linendraper of York had the proud pleasure of seeing the first train from York to London start on its journey.

From this achievement he advanced to others.  He and his friends obtained the lease, for thirty-one years, of a rival line, which turned out a great financial success.  His enterprise and energy were boundless.

It is said that his bold spirit, his capacity for work and his great influence daunted his most determined opponents.  For instance, the North Midland railway, part predecessor of the Midland, was involved in difficulty.  He appeared before the shareholders, offered, if his advice and methods were adopted, to guarantee double the then dividend.  His offer was accepted and he was made chairman, and from that position became chairman, and for a time dictator, of the amalgamated Midland system.  Clearly his business abilities were great; his reforms were bold and drastic, and success attended his efforts.  He soon became the greatest railway authority in England.  For a time the entire railway system in the north was under his control, and the confidence reposed in him was unbounded.  He was the lion of the day:  princes, peers and prelates, capitalists and fine ladies sought his society, paid homage to his power, besought his advice and lavished upon him unstinted adulation.

In 1845 the railway mania was at its height.  It is said that during two or three months of that year as much as 100,000 pounds per week were expended in advertisements in connection with railway promotions, railway meetings and railway matters generally.  Scarcely credible this, but so it is seriously stated.  Huge sums were wasted in the promotion and construction of British railways in early days, from which, in their excessive capital cost, they suffer now.  In the mania period railways sprang into existence so quickly that, to use the words of Robert Stephenson, they “appeared like the realisation of fabled powers or the magician’s wand.”  The Illustrated London News of the day said:  “Railway speculation has become the sole object of the world—­cupidity is aroused and roguery shields itself under its name, as a more safe and rapid way of gaining its ends.  Abroad, as well as at home, has it proved the rallying point of all rascality—­the honest man is carried away by the current and becomes absorbed in the vortex; the timid, the quiet, the moral are, after some hesitation, caught in the whirlpool and follow those whom they have watched with pity and derision.”

Powers were granted by Parliament in the year 1845 to construct no less than 2,883 miles of new railway at an expenditure of about 44,000,000 pounds; and in the next year (1846) applications were made to Parliament for authority to raise 389,000,000 pounds for the construction of further lines.  These powers were granted to the extent of 4,790 miles at a cost of about 120,000,000 pounds.