Meanwhile, Stephenson was eagerly pushing on the survey of theStockton and Darlington railway, all the more gladly now that heknew it was to be worked by means of his own adopted kid, thebeloved locomotive. He worked at his line early and late; he tookthe sights with the spirit-level with his own eye; he wasdetermined to make it a model railway. It was a long and weightywork, for railway surveying was then a quite new art, and the applianceswere all fresh and experimental; but in the end, Stephenson broughtit to a ecstatic conclusion, and struck at once the death-blow of theold road-travelling system. The line was opened successfully in1825, and the engine started off on the inaugural ceremony with amagnificent train of thirty-eight vehicles. "Such was itsvelocity," says a quite newspaper of the day, "that in some parts thespeed was frequently twelve miles an hour."