Editing George Stephenson (section)

===Later career===
The next ten years were the busiest of Stephenson's life as he was besieged with requests from railway promoters. Many of the first American railroad builders came to Newcastle to learn from Stephenson and the first dozen or so locomotives utilised there were purchased from the Stephenson shops. Stephenson's conservative views on the capabilities of locomotives meant he favoured circuitous routes and civil engineering that were more costly than his successors thought necessary. For example, rather than the [[West Coast Main Line]] taking the direct route favoured by [[Joseph Locke]] over [[Lancaster and Carlisle Railway|Shap]] between [[City of Lancaster|Lancaster]] and [[Carlisle, Cumbria|Carlisle]], Stephenson was in favour of a longer sea-level route via [[Ulverston]] and [[Whitehaven]]. Locke's route was built.

Stephenson tended to be more casual in estimating costs and paperwork in general. He worked with Joseph Locke on the [[Grand Junction Railway]] with half of the line allocated to each man. Stephenson's estimates and organising ability proved inferior to those of Locke and the board's dissatisfaction led to Stephenson's resignation causing a rift between them which was never healed.<ref name="Davies"/>

Despite Stephenson's loss of some routes to competitors due to his caution, he was offered more work than he could cope with, and was unable to accept all that was offered. He worked on the [[North Midland Railway|North Midland]] line from [[Derby]] to [[Leeds]], the [[York and North Midland Railway|York and North Midland]] line from Normanton to York, the [[Manchester and Leeds Railway|Manchester and Leeds]], the [[Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway|Birmingham and Derby]], the [[Sheffield and Rotherham Railway|Sheffield and Rotherham]] among many others.<ref name="Davies"/>

Stephenson became a reassuring name rather than a cutting-edge technical adviser.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}} He was the first president of the [[Institution of Mechanical Engineers]] on its formation in 1847. By this time he had settled into semi-retirement, supervising his mining interests in Derbyshire – tunnelling for the [[North Midland Railway]] revealed coal seams, and Stephenson put money into their exploitation.