The Midland Counties Railway was opened in 1840, and Thomas West Smith, one of our early members previously referred to, was stationed at Derby, working to Rugby and Nottingham. This Company, with the North Midland, became the Midland Railway Company in 1844, and Smith, taken over with all his colleagues and the rolling stock, worked a train to Leeds (Hunslet), Birmingham, and Lincoln. Smith, in 55 years' life on the line, drove some two million miles—85 times round the globe—and never met with an accident until knocked out just before his retirement.
George Stephenson, speaking at the opening of the Newcastle & Darlington Railway in 1844 said:—
"I got leave to go from Killingworth to lay down a railway at Hetton, and next to Darlington, and after that I went to Liverpool to plan the line to Manchester. I there pledged myself to attain a speed of ten miles an hour. I said I had no doubt the engine would go much faster, but we had better be moderate at the beginning. The directors said I was quite right, for if when they came to Parliament I talked of going at a greater rate than ten miles an hour, I would put a cross on the concern. It was not an easy task for me to keep engines down to ten miles an hour, but it must be done, and did my best. I had to place myself in the most unpleasant of all situations, the witness-box of a Parliamentary Committee. Someone inquired if I was a foreigner, and another hinted that I was mad. Many became alarmed at this "Watt run wild," and in order to prevent these mad steam engines running beyond an old horse trot, they got two eminent engineers to act as Lunacy Commissioners. These gentlemen proved it was practically and commercially inexpedient. I put up with insult and rebuff, and went on with my plans, determined not to be put down. Improvements were made every day, and to-day a train has brought me from London in the morning and enabled me to take my place in this room."
