Stephenson himself was one of the busiest men in the kingdom. He was engineer of half a dozen lines that were building, and he traveled incessantly. Many nights the only sleep he had was while sitting in his chaise riding over country roads. At dawn he would be at work, surveying, planning, directing, until nightfall. In three years he surveyed and directed the construction of the North Midland line, running from Derby to Leeds, the York and North Midland, from Normanton to York, the Manchester and Leeds, the Birmingham and Derby, and the Sheffield and Rotherham. And in addition to this he traveled far and wide to give advice about distant lines, to the south of England, to Scotland, and to the north of Ireland to inspect the proposed Ulster Railway. He took an office in London, in order that he might take part in the railway discussions that were continually coming before Parliament. His knowledge of every detail relating to the subject was enormous. He knew both the engineering and the business sides most intimately. “In fact,” he said to a committee of the House of Commons in 1841, “there is hardly a railway in England that I have not had to do with.” Yet in spite of all this work he found time to look after his coal mines near Chesterfield, to establish lime-works at Ambergate, on the Midland Railway, and to superintend his flourishing locomotive factory at Newcastle. King Leopold of Belgium invited him to Brussels, and there discussed with him his plans for a railway from Brussels to Ghent. The King made him a Knight of his Order of Leopold, and when the railway was finished George Stephenson was one of the chief guests of honor at the opening. Later he went to France, where he was consulted in regard to the new line that was building between Orleans and Tours. From there he went to Spain to look into the possible construction of a road between Madrid and the Bay of Biscay. He found the government of Spain indifferent to the railway, and there were many doubts as to whether there would be sufficient traffic to pay the cost of construction. His report to the shareholders in this proposed “Royal North of Spain Railway” was therefore unfavorable, and the idea was shortly after abandoned.