INSTRUCTION: Answer question with reference to text.
TEXT
It is often said of this monumental example of
Victorian civil engineering that it simply should never
have been built. Hundreds of navvies lost their lives
as the line made hesitant progress through some of
[5] England’s harshest terrain, while the financial costs
leapt ahead at breakneck speed. But a combination
of stubbornness and a not entirely misplaced belief
that a new route to Scotland could be profitable
ensured that on 1 May 1876, some seven years after
[10] construction began, the first passenger train hauled
itself over the north Pennines.
Source: The Lake District brochure, published by the English Tourist Board, 1996.
Vocabulary:
navvy someone whose job is to do hard physical work (old fashioned)
haul to change someone’s position by pulling them
The expression “breakneck speed” (line 06) means
