The Stockton and Darlington Railway was three years in process of construction, and the day of its opening, September 27th, 1825, was an important one in the history of travel. Imagine that first train load--the locomotive, guided by Stephenson himself, six freight cars, a car carrying "distinguished guests," twenty-one coal cars crammed with passengers, and six more freight cars all loaded. Ahead of the train, or procession, as it might be called, rode a man on horseback, carrying a flag bearing the motto, "The private risk is the public benefit." When the train started, crowds of people ran along by its side, for a time easily keeping up with it. Finally, however, Stephenson called to the horseman to get out of the way and, putting on steam, drove the engine at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The future of the locomotive was assured. Americans were ready for new methods of traveling. Three years after the opening of the first passenger steam-railway in England, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began to construct a line from Baltimore westward, and in two years fourteen miles were opened to travel. For a year, however, horses were used as motive power; in 1831, the road advertised for locomotives. Meanwhile an engine, called the "Stombridge Lion," was brought over from England, in 1829, and used on a line built by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. It was found to be too heavy and was abandoned. The second locomotive used in this country, "The Best Friend of Charleston," was built in New York City, and was run on the South Carolina Railroad. [Illustration: OLD-STYLE RAILROAD TRAIN.] The locomotive and the railroad had come, such as they were. The locomotive had its boiler and its smokestack, its cylinders and driving wheels; but it had no cab for the engineer and the fireman, and no brake to stop the train. The tender was but a flat car, carrying fuel and water. The cars were merely stagecoaches made to run on rails, and in no way were the passengers protected from the smoke and cinders of the burning wood. Yet this poor, inconvenient railroad was a great advance in itself, and it foretold greater advances in the days to come. In 1835, five years after the opening of the first steam railroad in the United States, there were twenty-three roads and over a thousand miles of track. After 1835, an average of nearly four hundred miles was built yearly until 1848. From that time until the beginning of the Civil War, railroad construction proceeded with great rapidity, nearly two thousand miles of railroad being built each year. In 1849, a continuous line of railroad was completed between New York and Boston. Two years later two distinct lines were finished, connecting New York and Buffalo. At the end of another two years, through connection was had between New York and Chicago. At the same time railroads were being built in all sections east of the Mississippi River.