year the bill passed through the Commons but was defeated in the Lords. After a public campaign and another survey by Robert, the necessary Act was obtained on 6 May 1833, and it was Robert, not yet 30 years old, that signed the contract on 20 September 1833 to build the railway from Camden Town to Birmingham. Robert was awarded a salary of £1,500 plus £200 expenses per annum, and he and Fanny moved from Newcastle to London. He drew up plans and made detailed work estimates, dividing the line into 30 contracts, most of which were placed by October 1835. A drawing office with 20–30 draughtsmen was established at the empty Eyre Arms Hotel in St John's Wood; George Parker Bidder, whom Robert had first met at Edinburgh University, started working for him there. Primrose Hill Tunnel, Wolverton embankment, and Kilsby Tunnel all had engineering problems and were completed using direct labour. The line permitted by the 1833 Act terminated north of Regent's Canal at Camden (near Chalk Farm Underground station), as Baron Southampton, who owned the land to the south, had strongly opposed the railway in the Lords in 1832. Later Southampton changed his mind, and authority was gained for an extension of the line south over Regent's Canal to Euston Square. This incline, with a slope between 1 in 75 and 1 in 66, was worked by a stationary engine at Camden − trains from Euston were drawn up by rope, whereas carriages would descend under gravity. The oft repeated statement that the rope-working was necessary because locomotives of the period were insufficiently powerful was denied in 1839 by Peter Lecount, one of the assistant engineers. In fact the incline was worked by locomotives from the opening date of the southern section of the line, 20 July 1837, until 14 October 1837, also whenever the stationary engine or rope were stopped for repairs, then for Mail Trains from November 1843, and entirely from 15 July 1844, without any real increase in the power of the locomotives. The reason given by Lecount for the rope working was the London and Birmingham Railway Act of Parliament, by which he said they were 'restricted ... from running locomotive engines nearer London than Camden Town.' The L&BR opened ceremonially on 15 September 1838. Construction had taken four years and three months, but had cost £5.5 million against the original estimate of