 At 126 miles this was the longest extent of a single railway authorised up to that time, and the share capital was to be £1.6 million, also a record.Construction proved to be hugely more expensive than had been contemplated, and when the line opened from London as far as Colchester in March 1843, £2.5 million had been expended to build a distance of 51 miles only, and for the time being no further construction was envisaged.There was considerable disappointment in Ipswich, and for some time it fell to other railway companies to make progress; in the mid-1840s there was a sudden rush of railway building.