"It became a tourist attraction," said Mr. van Heijningen, the railway official, himself the owner of three bicycles, one of which he rides to work every day.
Macdonald had taken $45,000 in contributions from the railway interest himself.
He was a tireless promoter of the railways and of himself, and he ascended swiftly, heading provincial bureaus on his way to the seat of power in Beijing.
Though Cushing, as Minister of Public Works, was initially responsible for railway policy, on November 1, 1909 Rutherford created a new ministry of Railways, which he appointed himself to head.
He was a fiercely private man who liked to book entire railway carriages for himself, even when travelling with his family.
This was coupled with an anxious compulsion to update his scrapbook with mental snapshots of the continuing makeover of the railway and acquaint himself with distant branches of its family tree while there was still time.
It was the fascinating story of Henry Box Brownwn, an enslaved African who, on hearing that his wife and children had been sold away from him, had a friend nail his 5ft 8in frame into a cargo box and, posing as railway freight, posted himself to the north and, of course, freedom.
In 1895 negotiations reached a satisfactory conclusion, and Calthrop formed a new company to build the Barsi Light Railway, and employed himself as consulting engineer.
He found himself drawn to the railways and coastlines that shaped the history and geography of present day North America.
Perhaps his most memorable role was as Woodcock, the loyal railway employee who allows himself to be blown up, by Paul Newman's Butch Cassidy, rather than let the train he is riding be robbed.
