- p.40 Manchester & Leeds (Hopwood Contract), for £82,408, accepted 14/8/1837; John Evans
- p.40 M&L (Summit Tunnel Contract), for £107,800, accepted 27/12/1837; John Evans & James Copeland. (Rescinded 18/3/39 on part completion)
- p.73 Bolton - Preston Contract No.1, for £52,000, accepted 29/12/1838; John Evans
- p.73 Bolton - Preston Contract No.4, for £82,408, accepted 4/3/1841; John Evans
- p.176 Blackburn, Darwen & Bolton Contract, £300,000? accepted 13/9/1845; John Evans. First sod cut at Darwen on 27 Sept 1845.
Contract No 1 covered 3 miles 1 chain from Bolton to Deane. The most difficult section of this contract was through Bolton, as it involved making ten bridges beneath streets and cut-and-cover tunnels, in all about 150yd long, near Moor Lane. A report in Railway Times of 28 November 1840 (p 1019) states that the line was nearly completed through Bolton and adds: 'The openings which the railway company have made through the crowded and narrow streets will be of essential service to the inhabitants by greatly facilitating a free circulation of the air through that fetid and impure region'
By the time this contract was awarded, No.1 contract was completed.
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The Summit Tunnel
Evans' and Copeland's tender for the Summit tunnel near Littleborough was
accepted on 17/12/1837. It seems very likely that the John Evans was
'our' John Evans, since Mary Ann Cheetham, William's future wife lived at
the Summit, not far from the tunnel entrance. It seems likely that William
met Mary Ann whilst camped near the work site.
(p.41 - The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, Volume 1): The shafts were started almost at once; the first bricks were laid in the No 10 shaft by the Chairman, James Wood, on 17 August 1838 and the work was finished by 8 November. The driftway, however, made very slow progress and by March 1839 Gooch (Stephenson's assistant), his patience exhausted, advertised for other tenderers. The successful applicant was 45-year-old John Stephenson (no relation to George) whose first railway work had been on the Stocton and Darlington in 1824 and who was to go on to become one of the leading railway contractors.
The tunnelling now went ahead at the rate of 150 yd a month and by September the driftway was through. But even this was not enough to ensure completion in time and to speed the work still further without changing from two to three shifts, a bonus scheme was introduced, whereby an extra day's wage was paid for every foot of progress beyond the stipulated amount at any face. The work had its dangers in spite of the care taken by the engineer, and three men and two boys were killed in an accident on 5/9/1839 and three more on 22/1/40. Another miner was killed on 15/5/40. On completion (11/12/40) it was the longest tunnel in the world at 2885 yd. There were 14 shafts, the deepest being 321 ft. Total cost was £251,000.
[See also Rake, Herbert; 'The Manchester and Leeds Railway', Railway Magazine, December 1905 and Jan 1906].
The Blackburn, Darwen & Bolton Contract
The first sod was cut at Darwen on 27 Sept 1845. Work proceeded but not without mishap. Evans made use of an old locomotive from the Stockton and Darlington Railway and on 20/11/46, while this was working about 300 yds north of the Sough Tunnel, it exploded 'from being overcharged with steam' (Railway Record 28/11/46). The driver was killed and the fireman badly scalded. The name of the engine was given as Shannon but it was probably the S&D No. 18 Shildon, an 0-6-0 with vertical cylinders in front of the smokebox, erected at Shildon in 1831 from parts supplied by R Stephenson & Hawthorn to the design of Hackworth, and sold in 1838.On 30 March 1847 locomotive No.1, a Hawthorn 0-6-0 weighing eighteen tons, was delivered to Darwen and a report at the time states that twenty-four horses were needed to rail it. Evans was allowed the use of it for two months to help in completing the line.
The five miles from Blackburn to Sough, above Darwen, were opened on 3 August 1847. On the same day four of the arches of the great Tonge viaduct at Bolton collapsed, killing two men. For its seventy-three arches, turned in brick on stone piers, only a limited number of timber centres were available and apparently some were removed for transfer to other piers before the mortar had set. (Marsden and Sons were contractors for the brickwork of the arches and Alexander Hodkinson executed the stonework for the piers and superstructure). Sough tunnel was also giving trouble, but at least the company had the consolation of knowing that in the first twenty-two days of the Blackburn to Sough service 24,453 passengers had been carried.
One line was opened through to Bolton on 12 June 1848. Single line working continued for three days to allow Evans to use the other line for the removal of his equipment.
The greatest engineering work was the Sough tunnel and the immense cutting at each end. The tunnel 2015 yd long was worked from 15 shafts, varying in depth from 120 to 258 feet to rail level, which were afterwards filled in. It was 17'6" high from rail level and 24 ' wide. A curious feature is that although one end can be seen from the other when it is clear, the tunnel is not straight, indicating some errors in construction.