He was a supporter of light railway vehicles and collaborated with William Bridges Adams on these.
These were built by Neilson and Company for the opening of the line in August 1852.
[2] From 1858 he worked on civil engineering projects in Asia Minor, the US and Mexico.
In 1850 James Samuel lodged patent 13029 for a form of locomotive compounding, giving "continuous expansion" using two cylinders of equal diameter, a system devised by John Nicholson, a driver on the Eastern Counties Railway.
[3] Two locomotives were built using this system—one for goods and one for passenger traffic—and, according to papers read by James Samuel before the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in January and April 1852, the results were "highly satisfactory".