Rocket

By 1828 the Liverpool & Manchester Railway was nearing completion as the world's first inter-city passenger railway, but the directors had not yet decided on motive power. The choice lay between stationary engines with rope haulage (favoured by some directors as a proven technology) and steam locomotives (favoured by George Stephenson but considered risky by many). To resolve the question, the directors decided to hold a public trial, the Rainhill Trials of October 1829, at which competing locomotive designs would be tested under specified conditions, with a £500 prize for the winning entry.

Robert Stephenson and Company at Newcastle, the firm controlled by George Stephenson and operated by his son Robert Stephenson, decided to enter. Rocket was the result. The engine was designed by Robert Stephenson with his father's collaboration, and combined three innovations that together made it decisively superior to competing designs:

• A multi-tube boiler with 25 copper firetubes, giving dramatically more heating surface than the single-flue boilers of competing engines
• A separate water-jacketed firebox at the rear of the boiler, allowing efficient heat transfer and independent sizing of the firebox
• A blast pipe directing the cylinder exhaust steam up the chimney, creating a strong draught that pulled fresh air through the firebed and so increased combustion intensity

The combination produced an engine that could generate steam much faster than its competitors and sustain running at speeds previously thought impossible. Construction at the Stephenson works at Forth Street, Newcastle, was rapid; the engine was completed in time for the Rainhill Trials in October 1829.

The Rainhill Trials took place from 6 to 14 October 1829 over a 1.75-mile course at Rainhill, near Liverpool. Five locomotives entered: Rocket, Sans Pareil (Timothy Hackworth), Novelty (John Braithwaite and John Ericsson), Cycloped (a horse-powered curiosity), and Perseverance (which was damaged en route and could not run effectively). The trials required each engine to haul three times its own weight at an average of at least 10 mph over a series of return trips totalling 70 miles, simulating a full day's service.

Rocket was the only engine to complete the trials successfully. It hauled a 13-ton load at an average of 13.8 mph and reached a maximum of 30 mph during testing. Novelty, lighter and faster, was popular with the crowds but suffered repeated mechanical failures. Sans Pareil completed some of the trials but burnt enormous quantities of coke. Rocket's combination of speed, sustainable running, and economy was decisive. The judges (which included Charles Vignoles and John Urpeth Rastrick) awarded the prize to Rocket on 14 October 1829.

Rocket's win secured the Liverpool & Manchester Railway as a steam-locomotive railway and Robert Stephenson and Company as the contracted supplier. The engine was delivered to the L&MR for the line's opening on 15 September 1830, and famously played a tragic role in the opening when William Huskisson MP, the Liberal politician for Liverpool, was struck and killed by Rocket at Parkside, becoming the first widely-reported railway fatality.

Rocket worked the Liverpool & Manchester Railway from 1830 to 1836. By the mid-1830s newer Stephenson designs (the Planet Class and its successors) had superseded Rocket on the principal duties. The engine was sold to the Earl of Carlisle's Brampton Railway in Cumbria in 1836, where it worked colliery traffic until being retired around 1840. The engine was returned to the Stephenson family's collection and preserved.

Rocket has a striking outline that is unmistakable in railway history. The single pair of large 4 ft 8½ in driving wheels (yellow-painted in some preserved configurations) sits at the front, with the smaller pair of carrying wheels at the rear. The two outside cylinders are mounted at an angle, projecting from the back of the boiler. The boiler is cylindrical with a tall chimney at the front. The separate firebox is at the rear, with the firedoor visible. The whole engine is approximately 14 ft long.