In 1858, the Western end of the Tunnel Line, extending from the Western base of the Hoosac Mountain to Troy, had been completed through the enterprise of the citizens of that thriving city and those of North Adams. The Vermont and Massachusetts was finished, and only thirty-seven miles of rail were needed to complete the direct connection of Boston with the Great West. Then was the time and opportunity for the State to have continued the same liberal policy which it had adopted toward the Western road, and to have extended her helping hand to the struggling corporation, which had undertaken the noble enterprise of piercing the barrier which was interposed between them and their "promised land." But their appeals for aid were met with sneers and derision; the work was bitterly opposed at every stage of its progress; the arts of demagogues, the cunning of lawyers, the fears of the timid, the credulity of the ignorant, and every conceivable influence which the well-filled treasury of the Western road could purchase were enlisted and combined against it. But, at last, perseverance and a good cause prevailed, and in 1854, the Legislature authorized a loan of the State credit to the amount of two millions of dollars, to the Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company, "for the purpose of enabling said company to construct a tunnel and railroad under and through the Hoosac Mountain, in some place between the 'Great Bend,' in Deerfield river, and the town of Florida, at the base of the Hoosac Mountain on the East, and the base of the Western side of the mountain, near the East end of the village of North Adams, on the West." But this loan was modified and restricted by such conditions, artfully introduced by the foes of the enterprise, that the work still languished, and its friends almost despaired even of ultimate success. The enabling act of 1857, would have greatly relieved them, but it was vetoed by Gov. Gardner. At the beginning of 1860, only $230,000 of the two millions had been advanced. In the Legislature of that year, the original act was modified so that the balance of the loan might be divided between the road from Greenfield and the Tunnel, for the construction of both parts of the work simultaneously. Provision was at the same time made for the appointment, annually, by the Governor, of a state engineer, to examine the work, make monthly estimates, and impose such requirements upon the company and contractors as he and the Governor and Council might deem expedient. In the summer of 1860, Colonel Ezra Lincoln of Boston, was appointed State engineer, and resigning in the following autumn, on account of illness, was succeeded by C. L. Stevenson, Esq.