News spread slowly in England in that day, and the fact that a steam locomotive was being successfully used at Killingworth attracted very little attention in the rest of the country. Even in the neighborhood of the mines people soon grew used to seeing “Puffing Billy,” as the engine was called, traveling back and forth from the pit to the quay, and took it quite for granted. Here and there scattered scientific men, ever since Watt’s perfection of the steam-engine, had considered the possibility of travel by steam, but practical business men had failed to come forward to build a railway line. At length, however, Edward Pease, of Darlington, planned a road to run from Stockton to Darlington, and set about building it. He had a great deal of difficulty in forming a company to finance it, but he was a man of much perseverance, and at length he succeeded. While he was doing this Stephenson was patiently building new locomotives, and trying to induce the mine-owners along the Tyne to replace their horse-cars with his engines. In 1819 the owners of the Hetton Colliery decided to make this change, and asked Stephenson to take charge of the construction of their line. He obtained the consent of the Killingworth owners, and began work. On November 18, 1822, the Hetton Railway was opened. Its length was about eight miles, and five of Stephenson’s locomotives were working on it, under the direction of his brother Robert. In building this line George Stephenson was thoroughly practical. Although he knew that his name was becoming more and more identified with the locomotive engine, he did not hesitate to use stationary engines wherever he considered that they would be more economical. In the Hetton Railway, which ran for a part of its distance through rough country, he used stationary engines wherever he could not secure grades that would make locomotives practicable. His own steam-engines traveled over this line at the rate of about four miles an hour, and each was able to draw a train of seventeen coal wagons, weighing about sixty-four tons.