 After an Act of Parliament was passed to allow it, he took a 25-year lease on the railway, thus becoming the first person ever to be the sole owner of a railway.The pride of their company was the South Staffordshire Line from Lichfield Trent Valley to Dudley via Walsall.This line also connected, just north of Dudley Station, with the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway's line from Wolverhampton to Stourbridge Junction and beyond - which allowed the company to run their trains to the south-east of the Black Country and into Worcestershire.