Gallery collection. Liverpool & Manchester Railway As a merchant, Sandars was dissatisfied with the cost and speed of transport of goods between the port of Liverpool and the major industrial centre of Manchester. Movement of goods depended largely on canal and turnpike traffic at this time. Sandars met with engineer William James who was a major advocate for railways and he was convinced by James that a project should be established to connect the two burgeoning towns. James was contracted to survey the proposed line but failed to deliver the necessary reports in a timely fashion and was replaced as engineer in 1824 by George Stephenson. Sandars played a key role in compiling the prospectus for the railway and in assembling the committee that would eventually pilot the necessary legislation through parliament. He subsequently served as one of four deputy chairmen from 1824 and as a director from 1826. Sandars was director in charge of the locomotive Dart on the railway's opening on 15 September 1830. Later railway involvement Sandars maintained an interest in railways and their application. He continued as a director when the Liverpool & Manchester Railway merged into the Grand Junction Railway in 1845 and later served on sub-committees of the London & North Western Railway formed after a further merger in 1846. While keeping a presence in Liverpool he also joined with Stephenson and others in developing mining and industrial interests elsewhere, first at Snibston in Leicestershire and subsequently at Clay Cross in Derbyshire. Portrait Sandars is shown in a painting by Spiridione Gambardella along with George Stephenson and Charles Sylvester. The original artwork was destroyed by bombing in Liverpool during World War 2 and only monochrome photographs remain. Family and later life During his time in Liverpool, Sandars lived in Pembroke Place. On 22 June 1812, he married Anna McKenzie Richards, of the same parish. His later years are poorly documented and his history readily confused with that of one of his sons, another Joseph Sandars, who became MP for Great Yarmouth in 1848-52 and was involved in the Clay Cross operations. Sandars' eldest son, William, died at the age of 17 in Frankfurt. He also had two daughters, Eliza Rose and Anna-Louisa. Eliza Rose married Birmingham magistrate Thomas Clement Sneyd-Kynnersley in June 1834. Anna-Louisa married in June 1843 to the Rev. Clement Francis Broughton, Rector of Norbury and Vicar of Uttoxeter. At the time