Greensands,

Not really a mystery. Search for Victoria Bridge, Washington UK and you'll find a Wikepedia page for it. Part of the Old Main Line from York to Newcastle, which crosses the river Wear East of Sunderland, near Washington, Tyne and Wear.

Track is now lifted.

Regard Tom

The Bridge was designed by T E Harrison, who was a close associate of the Stephensons. First employed by Robert and later took over from George as Chief Engineer of the York, Berwick and Newcastle Railway in 1850.

He gets a mention in the book in connection with Robert: He afterwards had the notes bound up, and placed in his library. Long years after, when conversing with Thomas Harrison, C.E., at his house in Gloucester Square, he rose from his seat and took down a volume from the shelves. Mr. Harrison observed that the book was in MS., neatly written out. “What have we here?” he asked. The answer was—“When I went to college, I knew the difficulty my father had in collecting the funds to send me there. Before going I studied short-hand; while at Edinburgh, I took down verbatim every lecture; and in the evenings, before I went to bed, I transcribed those lectures word for word. You see the result in that range of books.”

Dave

Greensands,

"As it was not a Stephenson designed bridge I cannot see why Smiles would have included the colour print in his book.of the engineers" – because you are making the assumption that Smiles always got his facts right! As SOD points out Harrison was a close associate of the Stephensons and so it may have been assumed (that word again) they were responsible for the design/ build. Perhaps it was just a nice picture which they had to hand?

Regards Tom

A quick run through the Gutenberg HTML version failed to find that picture, and it certainly isn't Montreal's Victoria Bridge. Many of the book's illustrations are by R.P.Leitch, and the style is similar, so maybe someone at the Folio Society got it wrong.

Couple of interesting insights on George Stephenson the man. Probably a drug addict:

He was habitually careless of his health, and perhaps he indulged in narcotics to a prejudicial extent. Hence he often became "hipped," and sometimes ill. When Mr. Sopwith accompanied him to Egypt in the Titania, in 1856, he succeeded in persuading Mr. Stephenson to limit his indulgence in cigars and stimulants, and the consequence was that by the end of the voyage he felt himself, as he said, "quite a new man."

And, an early example of old men always believing youngsters don't know what real work is:

It was while working at Willington as a brakesman that he first learned how best to handle a spade in throwing ballast out of the ships' holds. This casual employment seems to have left upon his mind the most lasting impression of what "hard work" was; and he often used to revert to it, and say to the young men about him, "Ah, ye lads! there's none o' ye know what wark is."

He was criticising mid-Victorian toughs, goodness knows what he'd have said about Baby Boomers!

Dave

i know this isn't strictly related to the main topic and a bit late but for those interested in the Clifton suspension bridge there is a very good lecture on YouTube by Julia Elton titled 'who designed the Clifton suspension bridge: facts and fiction'