Samuel Barton Worthington was articled to Joseph Locke in 1836 to work first on the construction of the Grand Junction Railway. He worked with Locke on many of the surveys of English and Scottish railways on which Locke was engaged, including the Glasgow-Greenock Railway, the Lancaster & Preston Junction railway, and the Sheffield & Manchester Railway. Between 1840 and 1844 he was in France with Locke working on the construction of the Paris to Rouen Railway. In 1844 he returned to England to be resident engineer for the southern half of the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway. When the line opened in 1846 he became engineer to the company. The Lancaster & Preston Junction Railway was placed under his charge in 1850. In 1859 the Lancaster & Carlisle was leased to the London & North Western Railway and Worthington was placed in charge of the lines from Carlisle to the Liverpool and Manchester line. In 1862 his division was extended to include all lines north of Crewe except the Cromford & High Peak Railway, and he remained Engineer of the London & North Western Railway Northern Division until his retirement in 1886. He practised as a consulting engineer from then until 1896. He was a Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers (1861) and the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (1860).