James Beatty was an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 railway

Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

 engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

.

The son of a doctor from Enniskillen

Enniskillen

Enniskillen is a town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is located almost exactly in the centre of the county between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,599 in the 2001 Census...

, Beatty was first employed in 1842 at the age of 22 by Peto

Samuel Morton Peto

Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet was an English entrepreneur and civil engineer in the 19th century. A partner in Grissell and Peto, he managed construction firms that built many major buildings and monuments in London...

 and Betts

Edward Betts

Edward Ladd Betts was an English civil engineering contractor who was mainly involved in the building of railways.-Early life:...

 on building the Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

 and Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

 line. In 1853 he was in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

 surveying the European and North American Railway

European and North American Railway

The European and North American Railway is the name for three historic Canadian and American railways which were built in New Brunswick and Maine....

 and despite adverse weather conditions, the line was staked out in good time. Towards the end of 1854 he was appointed by Peto, Brassey

Thomas Brassey

Thomas Brassey was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one...

 and Betts as Chief Engineer of the Grand Crimean Central Railway

Grand Crimean Central Railway

The Grand Crimean Central Railway was built in 1855 during the Crimean War. Its purpose was to supply ammunition and provisions to Allied soldiers engaged in the siege of Sevastopol who were stationed on a plateau between Balaclava and Sevastopol...

, built to convey supplies to the Allied forces in the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. He arrived in Balaklava

Balaklava

Balaklava is a former city on the Crimean peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol which carries a special administrative status in Ukraine. It was a city in its own right until 1957 when it was formally incorporated into the municipal borders of Sevastopol by the Soviet government...

 in January 1855 to join Donald Campbell and his team who had already started to survey the line. Beatty's energy and enthusiasm ensured that the line, which included a stretch at a gradient of 1 in 14, was laid in a very short time.

In April Beatty was involved in an accident on the line when a train went out of control. He sustained an injury which appeared originally not to be serious but he never fully recovered from it. With the railway substantially complete in November he was still far from well and he left for England. His condition continued to deteriorate and he died in March 1856 at the age of 35 from an aortic aneurysm

Aortic aneurysm

An aortic aneurysm is a general term for any swelling of the aorta to greater than 1.5 times normal, usually representing an underlying weakness in the wall of the aorta at that location...

which was possibly the result of the accident.