badly affected by a change of Government, when the Liberal administration replaced the outgoing Conservative group. A last-minute attempt to get a West Highland (Banavie and Mallaig) Bill in Parliament for the 1893 session was finally refused by the House of Lords. A new Bill, the "West Highland Mallaig Extension Bill" went to the 1894 session. Authorisation for the subsidy required a quite separate Bill; this was the West Highland Railway (Guarantee) Bill, also in the 1894 session. It was contingent on the construction Bill being passed; satisfactory improvements to Mallaig Harbour had to be agreed, and NBR was to undertake to work the line for 50% of gross receipts in perpetuity. The Highland Railway opposed the Bill as it was about to extend from Stromeferry to Kyle of Lochalsh. The West Highland Railway (Mallaig Extension) Act passed on 31 July 1894, but the guarantee bill was thrown out; many MPs objected to a free gift to a railway company. However the scheme, aimed at developing a backward area of the country, had Government support and the Guarantee Bill was submitted to Parliament again in the 1895 and 1896 sessions and eventually it passed, on 14 August 1896. The Treasury guaranteed the shareholders 3% on £260,000 of West Highland Railway (Mallaig Extension) capital and to make a grant of £30,000 towards the £45,000 cost of the pier at Mallaig; rates were also to be held to the level of unimproved land. The first sod of the extension line was cut on 21 January 1897 at Corpach by Lady Margaret Cameron. The contractors were Robert McAlpine and Sons, and the engineers were Simpson and Wilson. Although the section from Banavie to the head of Loch Eil was easy, from there onwards the terrain was very difficult, a problem exacerbated by the remoteness and difficult access. Very hard rock was encountered and away from Loch Eil there was a considerable volume to penetrate. Steam-powered drilling equipment was difficult to bring to the locations and keep fuelled, and McAlpine used water turbines to provide compressed air power for drilling. The construction of the line actually cost £540,000 (). Although the rock was hard, it was shattered and fractured, making it unsuitable for conventional masonry construction in bridges and viaducts, and this led McAlpine to use mass concrete to build many bridges; at the time this was a revolutionary form of construction. Borrodale Burn