if necessary they would link with another new railway, but the huge cost of this proved impossible to raise. A more practical scheme running to Plymouth gradually took priority, and at first the trains were to cross the Hamoaze, the body of water at the mouth of the River Tamar on a steam ferry. This was shown to be unrealistic, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel was called in to resolve the difficulty. He designed the bridge over the River Tamar at Saltash, the Royal Albert Bridge: when it was built it was the most prodigious engineering feat in the world. He also improved the details of the route elsewhere. By reaching Plymouth, the company could connect with the South Devon Railway and on to London over the Bristol and Exeter railway and the Great Western Railway. The line was built on the broad gauge. Deprived of the lucrative packet trade, the promoters now discovered that it was impossible to raise the money needed to build the line, and there was considerable delay until the economy of the country improved. The object of linking Falmouth to London was quietly dropped, and the line was built from Truro to Plymouth. At Truro another railway, the West Cornwall Railway, fed in, linking Penzance to the network. Falmouth was much later connected too, but only by a branch line. Brunel designs a practical route The terrain crossed by the railway was exceptionally difficult because of the number of north-south valleys intersecting the route. Because of the extreme shortage of money when the railway was being built, Brunel designed timber trestle viaducts; these were much cheaper but they incurred heavy maintenance costs and were eventually reconstructed in masonry or brick, or in a few cases made into embankments. The spindly appearance of these high viaducts made passengers nervous, but they provided a marked impression associated with the line (although Brunel did use the form of construction elsewhere). The shortage of money at construction also forced the company to install single track only. Once in operation, the line was still short of money, but it made some progress in converting the viaducts to more durable materials, and in doubling some sections of the route, but the need to convert to standard gauge in addition was too much and the company was obliged to sell out to the Great Western Railway. If the original plan had been to