Stephenson's Rocket, Rainhill and the rise of the locomotive

Despite Rocket's international fame, engineer Richard Trevithick had completed the first successful steam-powered locomotive to haul a load on rails in 1804—long before the Stephensons' engine.

The product of a 500-guinea bet between South Wales ironmasters Samuel Homfray and Richard Crawshay, it consisted of a high-pressure boiler mounted on wheels, with pistons connected to gears that drove the wheels.

The bet was for the locomotive to haul ten tons of iron along the Merthyr Tydfil tramroad from Penydarren to Abercynon—nearly ten miles.

In the event, the locomotive hauled 11 tons of iron and 70 men at a speed of 2.4 mph.

Although too heavy for regular use on the tramroad’s brittle cast iron rails, this was a vital step towards long-distance rail transport as we know it today.

Between then and Rocket's success in 1829 engineers trialled various other locomotives, including George Stephenson's Blücher and Puffing Billy, built by William Hedley, Jonathan Forster and Timothy Hackworth for Wylam colliery.

Although Rocket impressed and ultimately won at Rainhill, few of its features were new. It was the combination of many existing concepts, from a more effective boiler to a blast-pipe exhaust which made the engine self-regulating, that made Stephenson's design revolutionary and gave it the speed and efficiency needed to win the trials.

These elements became part of virtually every locomotive built during the reign of steam on the world's railways—they weren't invented for Rocket, but their combination in one machine catalysed the development of viable steam locomotives.

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Find out more about the design of this legendary locomotive with our 3D model below.

George Stephenson was born in poverty in Wylam, Northumberland in 1781 and was illiterate until the age of 18. Initially employed as a low-paid fireman for the Wylam Colliery pumping engine, George became an engineman at 17, earning enough money to pay for lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.

He was eventually employed as an engine-wright in charge of pumping engines at Killingworth Colliery, where he built his first locomotive in 1814 and established the Robert Stephenson & Co. engine manufacturing company in 1823. He went on to have a long career as chief engineer for multiple railway lines, including the Stockton & Darlington Railway and the L&MR.  

George's son Robert followed him into the engineering profession and was in personal charge of the project to build Rocket, leading on the design—with the exception of a crucially important innovation to the boiler (the use of a large number of narrow-bore fire tubes, rather than a simple large flue), which was suggested by Henry Booth.

Robert was so confident of his locomotive's superiority that he came in as joint entrant with his father and Booth.  Robert was particularly vocal about the potential of the steam locomotive:

The other designs couldn't all be written off out of hand. Novelty was actually faster than Rocket, but broke down and had to withdraw. Cycloped was clearly not in real contention, but amazingly the horse-powered locomotive design was used in America by the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company.

Serious competition for Rocket came from Hackworth's Sans Pareil (French for 'without equal').

Although it was over the maximum weight allowed for a locomotive on four wheels, the judges allowed it to take part in the trials, and the locomotive clearly impressed—the Liverpool & Manchester purchased it afterwards for £550.

Hackworth later wrote to the directors of the L&MR that "neither in construction nor in principle was the engine deficient" and that circumstances had been against him in the trials.

It seems likely Robert Stephenson also considered it a rival, having written to Henry Booth in August 1829 describing Hackworth's "ingenious" plan for a boiler. Although not as well-remembered as the Stephensons, Hackworth was a vital figure in the development of steam locomotives and still has his supporters, particularly in County Durham.

Before Rocket powered to victory, steam locomotives were crude and inefficient, only used for slow goods trains.

After the trials, the directors of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway were impressed enough with the potential of steam power that they ordered four more locomotives from the Stephensons. None of these were exactly the same—the original Rocket was a prototype built to win the trials, rather than a suitable engine for daily traffic.

The pace of change in railway technology was so fast by this point that Rocket was substantially rebuilt within 18 months and laid aside within 10 years, and by 1840 the original was out of use completely.

Rocket wasn't a perfect design, but its success lit the spark which catalysed decades of continued ingenuity in rail engineering.

The L&MR also bought Hackworth's Sans Pareil and ran it on the railway for two years, before selling it to the Bolton and Leigh Railway—evidence of all-round impact of the trials, not simply of Rocket.

The L&MR now linked two great commercial towns with a regular service of fast passenger trains.

Professional people could travel to another town, transact a full day's business and return home the same day—an impossibility in the days of coaching. 

Freight was carried too, of course, but for the first time it was the passenger who was more important—and, crucially, more profitable. Investors saw the potential, and in a few short years Britain would be in the grip of 'Railway Mania'.

The stage was set for steam to dominate the railways for over a century.