He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts, stations, tunnels and drainage works.

As well as railway engineering, Brassey was active in the development of steamships, mines, locomotive factories, marine telegraphy, and water supply and sewage systems.

He built part of the London sewerage system, still in operation today, and was a major shareholder in Brunel's The Great Eastern, the only ship large enough at the time to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable across the North Atlantic, in 1864.

[8] Brassey's first experiences of civil engineering were the construction of 4 miles (6 km) of the New Chester Road at Bromborough,[9] and the building of a bridge at Saughall Massie, on the Wirral.

[10] During that time he met George Stephenson, who needed stone to build the Sankey Viaduct on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

[11] In 1835 Brassey submitted a tender for building the Penkridge Viaduct, further south on the same railway, between Stafford and Wolverhampton, together with 10 miles (16 km) of track.

[16] In January 1846, during the building of the 58-mile (93 km) long Rouen and Le Havre line, one of the few major structural disasters of Brassey's career occurred, the collapse of the Barentin Viaduct.

[20] In 1844 Brassey and Locke began building the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway of 70 miles (113 km), which was considered to be one of their greatest lines.

The latter line provided a link between London and the ferries sailing from Holyhead to Ireland and included Robert Stephenson's tubular Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait.

In Norway, with Sir Morton Peto and Edward Betts, Brassey built the Oslo to Bergen Railway of 56 miles (90 km) which passes through inhospitable terrain and rises to nearly 6,000 feet (1,829 m).

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.

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.

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.

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.

[32] When news of the problem arrived in Britain, Brassey joined with Peto and Betts in offering to build a railway at cost to transport these necessary supplies.

[36] In 1866 there was a great economic slump, caused by the collapse of the bank of Overend, Gurney and Company, and many of Brassey's colleagues and competitors became insolvent.

These included the Lemberg (now Lviv) and Czernowicz (now Chernivtsi) Railway in Galicia (part of Austrian Empire) which continued to be constructed despite the Austro-Prussian War which was taking place in the locality.

[37] From 1867 Brassey's health was beginning to decline, but he continued to negotiate further contracts, including the Czernowicz and Suczawa Railway in the Austrian Empire.

In 1868 he suffered a mild stroke but he continued to work and in April 1869 he embarked on an extensive tour of over 5,000 miles (8,000 km) in Eastern Europe.

This was a stretch of the Metropolitan Mid Level Sewer of 12 miles (19 km) which started at Kensal Green, passed under Bayswater Road, Oxford Street and Clerkenwell to the River Lea.

[42] Brassey gave financial help to Brunel to build his ship Leviathan, which was later called Great Eastern and which in 1854 was six times larger than any other vessel in the world.

During his career Brassey worked with many engineers, the most illustrious being Robert Stephenson, Joseph Locke and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Brassey paid his navvies and gangers a wage and provided food, clothing, shelter and, in some projects, a lending library.

[52] Thomas' work led to frequent moves of home in their early years; from Birkenhead to Stafford, Kingston upon Thames, Winchester and then Fareham.

[55] They had three surviving sons, who all gained distinction in their own right:[56] In 1870 Brassey was told that he had cancer but he continued to visit his working sites.

There he was visited by members of his work force, not only his engineers and agents, but also his navvies, many of whom had walked for days to come and pay their respects.

[58] In 1870 Brassey purchased Heythrop Park, a baroque house situated in an estate of 450 acres (1.8 km2) 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Oxford as a wedding present for his third son, Albert.

[67] The only faults which his eldest son could identify were a tendency to praise traits and actions of other people he would condemn in his own family, and an inability to refuse a request.

[72] In November 2005, Penkridge celebrated the bicentenary of Brassey's birth[73] and a special commemorative train was run from Chester to Holyhead.

It was surrounded by four inscribed sandstone pillars tied together by iron rails but due to the growth of the tree these burst and the stones fell.