Chat Moss (City of Salford)

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Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England.[1] North of the River Irwell, 5 miles (8 km) to the west of Manchester, it occupies an area of about 10.6 square miles (27.5 km2).
Chat Moss presented a significant challenge to the engineers constructing the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1826 because of the difficulty in providing a solid base for the track, in particular at a location known as Blackpool Hole. George Stephenson was the engineer in charge of the project, and his initial idea was to dump enough spoil in the bog so that it would reach the bottom. This approach turned out to be impractical however, as the liquidity of the bog allowed the spoil to flow away from where the track was to be laid. The eventual solution, to build the line on a "floating" wood and stone foundation, was hailed as a "great triumph of engineering". The first train ran through Chat Moss in 1830, and the line is still in use today.