Notes:  The ground-breaking Stockton & Darlington railway of 1825 and the technologically much superior Liverpool-Manchester line of 1830 created an impetus for rapid railway development. Most grandiose (and expensive per mile) was the two-mile viaduct from London Bridge towards Greenwich. That waterborne transport was still in the ascendant at the time can be seen from the two other major projects of the period: the Leeds-Selby, giving Leeds access to the rivers and North Sea; and the Carlisle-Newcastle, a very successful line whose primary raison d'etre was not the towns at either end but the linking of the seaborne transport on the east and west coasts. Many of the other early lines were rebuilt tramways.