Perseverance

Perseverance was a 0-2-0 steam locomotive built by Timothy Burstall and entered in the celebrated Rainhill Trials of October 1829, the competitive locomotive trials organised by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to select the motive power for the world's first inter-city steam-hauled passenger railway. Perseverance represented one of the five competitors at Rainhill alongside the famous Rocket, Novelty, Sans Pareil, and Cycloped, though it was the least successful of the serious steam competitors and withdrew from the trials after failing to meet the speed requirements.

Timothy Burstall was a Scottish engineer who had been working on steam road carriages, and Perseverance reflected this road-vehicle heritage rather than the railway locomotive tradition that Stephenson and others were developing. The locomotive was damaged in transit to Rainhill and had to undergo repairs before competing; even when running it achieved only about 6 mph — well below the required average of 10 mph that the Rainhill rules demanded. Burstall withdrew Perseverance after a few runs without completing the full trial.

Despite its failure at Rainhill, Perseverance occupies an important place in railway history as one of the five Rainhill competitors and as evidence of the variety of approaches being explored in steam locomotion in 1829. Burstall's road-vehicle background, his use of a water-cooled condenser and other unconventional features, and the ultimate failure of his machine against Stephenson's Rocket all contributed to the broader story of how the steam locomotive came to take the form it did. No original Perseverance survives.