"Puffing Billy" is the biography of the renowned British civil engineer and mechanical engineer, George Stephenson. Dubbed "The Father of Railways" Stephenson is renowned for his immense contribution to railway transport as a pioneer. The book traces his life from his humble beginnings among the coal pits of the little village of Wylam, near New Castle, to his subsequent interest in railways, and the inventions he perfected to birth what was then only an idea into a popular means of public transport.