ABSTRACT
WH I L E the Great Northern had thus succeeded in getting towork on a small Lincolnshire line only, the first great "race to the north"—the race to open the two great competing routes to Scotland-had reached a critical stage. The authorization of the North British Railway from Edinburgh to Berwick in 1844-a year before the Caledonian Bill passed-had given a decided start to the East Coast ; but though the North British was completed and opened in June, 1846, the filling of the gap between Gateshead and Berwick had still to be waited for, and so it was not until October, 1847, that Mr. James Allport, the manager of the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Company, whom Hudson had brought from the Midlands about two years before specially to develop the East Coast traffic, was able to announce a through service from Euston via Rugby, Normanton, York, and Newcastle-timed to cover the distance between London and Edinburgh in thirteen hours and ten minutes.
