As the result had been foreseen, measures were taken to neutralise the effect of this decision as regarded future operations. Not less than £32,000 had been expended in preliminary and parliamentary expenses up to this stage; but the promoters determined not to look back, and forthwith made arrangements for prosecuting the bill in the next session. Strange to say, the bill then passed both Houses silently and almost without opposition. The mystery was afterwards solved by the appearance of a circular issued by the directors of the company, in which it was stated, that they had opened “negotiations” with the most influential of their opponents; that “these measures had been successful to a greater extent than they had ventured to anticipate; and the most active and formidable had been conciliated.” An instructive commentary on the mode by which these noble lords and influential landed proprietors had been “conciliated,” was the simple fact that the estimate for land was nearly trebled, and that the owners were paid about £750,000 for what had been originally estimated at £250,000. The landowners having thus been “conciliated,” the promoters of the measure were permitted to proceed with the formation of their great highway. Robert Stephenson was, with the sanction of his father, appointed sole engineer; and steps were at once taken by him to make the working survey, to prepare the working drawings, and arrange for the construction of the railway. Eighty miles of the road were shortly under contract, having been let within the estimates; and the works were in satisfactory progress by the beginning of 1834. The difficulties encountered in their construction were very great; the most formidable of them originating in the character of the works themselves. Extensive tunnels had to be driven through unknown strata, and miles of underground excavation had to be carried out in order to form a level road from valley to valley, under the intervening ridges. This kind of work was the newest of all to the contractors of that day. Robert Stephenson’s experience in the collieries of the North rendered him well fitted to grapple with such difficulties; yet even he, with all his practical knowledge, could scarcely have foreseen the serious obstacles which he was called upon to encounter in executing the formidable cuttings, embankments, and tunnels of the London and Birmingham Railway. It would be an uninteresting, as it would be a fruitless task, to attempt to describe the works in detail; but a general outline of their extraordinary character and extent may not be out of place. [Picture: Rugby to Watford]