Portal:Trains/Featured article/Week 48, 2005

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Stephenson's Rocket preserved at the London Science Museum

The Rainhill Trials was an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 near Rainhill (just outside Liverpool). When the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was approaching completion, the directors of the railway ran a competition to decide whether stationary steam engines or locomotives would be used to pull the trains. The Rainhill Trials were arranged as an open contest that would let them see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. Regardless of whether or not locomotives were settled upon, a prize of £500 was offered to the winner of the trials. Three notable figures from the early days of locomotive engineering were selected as judges: John Kennedy, John Urpeth Rastrick, and Nicholas Wood. Ten locomotives were entered, but on the day the competition began, October 6, 1829, only five locomotives actually began the tests: Cycloped (built by Thomas Brandreth), Novelty (John Ericsson and John Braithwaite), Perseverance (Timothy Burstall), Rocket (George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson) and Sans Pareil (Timothy Hackworth).

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