financial failure, with the contractors losing £1 million. The Canada Works The contract for the Grand Trunk Railway included all the materials required for building the bridge and the railway, including the rolling stock. To manufacture the metallic components, Brassey built a new factory in Birkenhead which he called The Canada Works. A suitable site was found by George Harrison, Brassey's brother-in-law, and the factory was built with a quay alongside to take ocean-going ships. The works was managed by George Harrison with a Mr. Alexander and William Heap as assistants. The machine shop was in length and included a blacksmiths' shop with 40 furnaces, anvils and steam hammers, a coppersmiths' shop, and fabrication, woodwork and pattern shops. There was also a well-stocked library and a reading room for all the workforce. The fitting shop was designed to manufacture 40 locomotives a year and a total of 300 were produced in the next eight years. The first locomotive, given its trial in May 1854, was named Lady Elgin, after the wife of the Governor General of Canada of the time, the Earl of Elgin. For the bridge hundreds of thousands of components were required and all were manufactured in Birkenhead or in other English factories to Brassey's specifications. These were all stamped and coded, loaded into ships to be taken to Quebec and then by rail to the site of the bridge for assembly. The central tube of the bridge contained over 10,000 pieces of iron, perforated by holes for half a million rivets, and when it was assembled every piece and hole was true. The Grand Crimean Central Railway Brassey played a part in helping the British forces to success in the Crimean War. The Black Sea port of Sevastopol was held by the Russians. The British government, in alliance with the French and the Turks, sent an army of 30,000 to Balaclava, another port in a neighbouring bay of the Black Sea, from which to attack Sevastopol. Sevastopol was besieged in September 1854 by the British and allied forces. It was hoped that the siege would be short but with the coming of winter the conditions were appalling and it was proving difficult to transport clothing, food, medical supplies and weaponry from Balaclava to the front. When news of the problem arrived in Britain, Brassey joined with Peto and Betts in offering to build a railway at cost