But the highest aston ishment of all was created on the occasion of a race of locomotives on the line, for a prize of five hundred pounds, when the Rocket* travelled over a mile in one minute and twenty seconds; being at the rate of forty-five miles an hour.
In place of horses two locomotives were em ployed to draw the marl and rock from the excavations, at a saving of nearly fifty pounds a month in one case, and of still more in the other.  But the highest aston ishment of all was created on the occasion of a race of locomotives on the line, for a prize of five hundred pounds, when the Rocket* travelled over a mile in one minute and twenty seconds; being at the rate of forty-five miles an hour.  At length, on the 15th of September, 1830, the railway was opened for traffic.