One of the great triumphs of the 19th century was the building of the railways. They established Britain as the centre of the commercial world. The work involved was stupendous - routes had to be surveyed, land purchased, rivers crossed, hills burrowed through or sliced in two by cuttings of great length, perhaps with roads passing overhead. This book concentrates on the people responsible for designing and actually building the railways, from the financiers, engineers and contractors to the gangers and navvies. They deserve far more attention than they have so far received. How was the money raised? How were the necessary acts driven through Parliament? How did surveyors cope with landowners up in arms? How were the armies of navvies kept off the drink and out of fights? How were tunnels excavated, especially when they ran under major rivers? What was involved in draining swamps like Chat Moss? Who made the billions of bricks, the hundreds of thousands of wooden tunnel supports, or the tens of thousands of miles of rail? And how did they do it? Against a background of enormous activity, fortunes were made and lost and men died in considerable numbers. Anthony Burton's narrative brings the scene to life.