The year 1823 marked another forward step for George Stephenson and railroads. Two years before a road had been chartered to connect the Durham coal-fields with tidewater. Stephenson heard of the project, and at once proposed to the company to make an iron railroad of the new wooden tramway and equip it with his traveling engines. His arguments and demonstrations won over the skeptical directors. They had their charter amended so as to authorize the use of steam as motive power for the transport of passengers as well as merchandise. Thus began the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first in the world with a passenger charter. The chief engineer was George Stephenson, on a salary of five hundred pounds. At the same time, with the assistance of the railroad people, he founded the locomotive shops at Newcastle. The new railroad, the first public line, was opened in September, 1825. As its construction progressed, its engineer had become increasingly sanguine of success. He said to his son Robert at this time: "I venture to tell you that I think you will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country--when mail coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the King and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a workingman to travel upon a railway than to walk on foot. I know there are great and almost unsurmountable difficulties to be encountered, but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live. I only wish I may live to see the day, though that I can scarcely hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is, and with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive thus far adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years' successful experiment at Killingworth." The first train over the road was such an one as had never been seen before. George Stephenson was at the lever when the engine pulled out with a string of eight cars behind it. One regular passenger coach--the first ever built--held the directors, and twenty-one improvised passenger "wagons" carried some six hundred daring individuals. Coal and flour filled the other cars. The journey was safely accomplished at a speed which is said at times to have reached the hitherto unheard of rate of twelve miles an hour. The road, with its three Stephenson locomotives and many horses, was successful from the first, and its dividends were among the chief inducements which led to the next and more important advance in railroad construction, the Liverpool and Manchester line.