It's 1829 all over again as Rocket returns to Shildon

It was a battle for more than just the £500 first prize. It was a battle for prosperity – with the world waking up to the potential of the railway, the winner would be able to sell their engines around the globe. And it was a battle for reputation.

Sans Pareil at the back and Rocket drawing alongside it on Wednesday at Locomotion - it was like 1829 all over again

This week, after 194 years, battle has been rejoined at Shildon as Rocket, the Newcastle-built winner of the Rainhill Trials in 1829, was carefully manoeuvred into place besides Sans Pareil, the Shildon-built challenger which, its backers alleged, would have won if it hadn’t been for some underhand skulduggery.

The Rainhill Trials were held to discover the fastest and most efficient engine in the kingdom which would open the new Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

The line was being built by George Stephenson (above) and, with backing of the directors of the railway, he entered Rocket – “a most improved locomotive engine”, designed by his son, Robert, and built in their factory in Forth Street, Newcastle, with a revolutionary multi-tubular boiler.

Meanwhile, 30 miles south in Shildon, Timothy Hackworth (above) was constructing Sans Pareil – French for “without equal” – with his revolutionary blastpipe. His was the smaller operation, and he relied on crucial parts made at the Stephensons’ factory, and he only got to test run his engine once at midnight at the Aycliffe level crossing beside Heighington station, whereas Rocket underwent serious testing at Killingworth before the engines were shipped over to Liverpool.

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A third serious contender emerged: Novelty (above), which was hurriedly built in London by John Braithwaite and John Ericcson.

There were two other entrants. Cycloped which used horsepower rather than steampower. The poor animal was on a treadmill inside the engine and its galloping drove the Cycloped forward.

And Perseverance, built in Edinburgh by Timothy Burstall, who surprised Robert Stephenson by turning up unannounced in his factory and secretly examining Rocket as if he were trying to suss out the opposition.

These were the competitors in the trials – known, like a Saturday night TV programme today, as an “ordeal” – that began on October 7, 1829. They were more like a horserace than a scientific engineering challenge, with the spectators in a grandstand being entertained by a brass band, the local pubs overflowing, and the competitors walking around the paddock with the colours of their engines pinned to their lapels.

The entry conditions were strict. Engines could weigh no more than 4.5 tons. They had to haul a load three times their own weight 20 times over the 1.5 mile track – equalling the return journey from Manchester to Liverpool – and they had to “consume their own smoke”. They were to be judged on average speed, top speed and consumption of coal and water.

The horsepowered Cycloped (above) did not fit the bill, but it was allowed to have a go on the rails if only to entertain the crowd.

Perseverance (above), which looked like a huge wine bottle standing upright on wheels, had had a bad accident on the way down from Edinburgh, and Mr Burstall was given time to make repairs.

So Novelty was called up. With its polished copper gleaming against its blue woodwork, it looked very modern and was immediately the crowd favourite, although it was really just a steampowered road coach stuck on some rail wheels.

Dismissed by John Dixon, of Darlington, as a “tea urn”, it whizzed along at 28mph, much to the crowd’s delight, until it suffered an explosion and was taken off for repairs.

Next up was Hackworth’s Sans Pareil, in its green, yellow and black livery.

A replica of Sans Pareil at the Shildon museum in its 1829 colours

But it was a little too heavy and so was disqualified. Still, it was allowed to have a go on the tracks, but soon departed with a leaky boiler.

The second day of the trial belonged to Rocket (an 1829 replica above). It was painted bright yellow because that was the colour that the fastest horsedrawn stagecoaches of the era ran in. It performed like a rocket, reaching a top speed of nearly 30mph, and averaging 14mph as it completed the distance. It even began to win the crowd over.

A few days later, repairs had been completed, and Perseverance put in an appearance. Despite engineering assistance from Hackworth, Burstall realised it wouldn’t make the grade and gallantly withdrew.

Then Novelty returned to the fray. With “water flying about in all directions”, it was still sprightly but struggled when asked to pull the load – “it lacks guts”, said George Stephenson.

Hackworth then put Sans Pareil on the tracks, and it performed steadily, despite red hot coke being blown from its chimney by the blastpipe, averaging 14mph.

John Dixon, who was very much in the Stephenson camp, wrote back to his brother in Darlington saying that Sans Pareil “mumbles and roars and rolls about like an Empty Beer Butt on a rough pavement”.

And then, right in front of the grandstand, it was enveloped in a cloud of steam and had to be pushed off the tracks.

On the last day of the trial, Novelty had another sprightly run but developed another leak and was withdrawn, leaving Rocket the outright winner.

Stephenson giving free rides at the end of the Rainhill Trials with Rocket

George Stephenson immediately rocked up with a passenger coach which he attached to Rocket and he began giving free rides to the crowd, 40 people at a time travelling at 20mph and none of their eyes popping out with the speed – the Stockton & Darlington Railway, on which both Stephenson and Hackworth had made their names, averaged only eight miles and hour for passenger trains at this time.

Hackworth was not impressed by the outcome. Dixon descriptively says that he was “grobbing on night and day” about it.

The Stephensons undoubtedly had everything in their favour: the bigger set-up, the friends in high places, the better engine on the day.

But Hackworth supporters maintain that it wasn’t a level playing field and in later years they cast aspersions on the cylinders made for Sans Pareil by the Stephensons. On its last run, one cracked, causing that great cloud of steam and a catastrophic loss of pressure.

Robert Young, in his 1923 biography of Hackworth, says that Sans Pareil’s breakdown “was entirely owing to the bad workmanship of Robert Stephenson & Company”.

The directors of the Liverpool & Manchester gave a vote of confidence in Sans Pareil by buying it for £550 and it worked for two years on their railway.

The original Sans Pareil at the Shildon Locomotion museum

Rocket in place at Shildon, with "No 1" on its front

BUT as the polyurethane packaging was pulled off Rocket on Wednesday in Shildon’s Locomotion museum, you could still see that it had “No 1” painted on its front bumper because it was the Liverpool & Manchester’s No 1 engine – just as its sister engine, Locomotion No 1, was the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s No 1 engine.

And so it was involved in the most famous railway fatality on the opening day of the railway, September 15, 1830.

There were six trains, pulled by the Stephensons’ latest engines, on duty that day, with George Stephenson driving Northumbrian, which hauled the most important VIPs, headed by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington. An arch Tory, many of the thousands of working class spectators who lined the route wanted to get their hands on, so there was a great police presence.

The Duke of Wellington's royal coach at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830

Also on the lead train was the Austrian ambassador, Prince Paul Esterhazy, and Miss Fanny Kemble, the hottest actress of the moment, plus William Huskisson, the Liverpool MP who had resigned from Wellington’s government as President of the Board of Trade because of his differences with the PM.

In a lull in proceedings at the middle of the inaugural journey, Huskisson and Prince Paul decided to stretch their legs by leaving the train and walking on the tracks. Huskisson spotted Wellington in his state coach. The Prime Minister nodded to him, and he dashed over to him, perhaps hoping for a political rapprochement. They shook hands through an open door.

But then Rocket appeared coming towards Huskisson (above) on the second track – the track he was standing on. The danger was immediately apparent, and people in the Prime Minister’s carriage managed to haul the prince out of the way.

Huskisson, though, was renowned for being clumsy and cumbersome, with his mobility reduced by broken bones caused by previous accidents.

In a moment of terminal indecision, the former President of the Board of Trade went backwards, forwards, then tripped and somehow ended up clinging to the open door of the duke’s carriage. As Rocket approached, the swinging motion of the door flung him under the wheels of the engine as it went past, mangling his legs terribly.

“I have met my death,” he said.

Stephenson swiftly swung into action. He uncoupled Northumbrian from its carriages and sped the fatally injured MP to the nearest town of Eccles, going at a staggering 36mph – an unbelievable sight. Although the dash meant the unfortunate Huskisson received medical treatment, he soon died of his injuries.

The rest of the opening day descended into chaos, with the unpopular Prime Minister only just avoiding a Liverpudlian lynching, but, thanks to Rocket, the railway age was taking off, with hundreds of passengers now travelling on trains at unbelievable speeds.

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• From today, Rocket is beside Sans Pareil at Locomotion at Shildon and, for the first time, Locomotion No 1 is nearby, making an unrivalled trio of early engines with so many stories to tell. Rocket is in Shildon until 2025.
• By coincidence, today at 2.30pm, academic and author Mike Norman launches his novel, It Wasn’t Rocket Science, which makes the case for Hackworth at the Railway Institute in Redworth Road, Shildon, with a free talk.