3-070-869 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

George Stephenson, Father of Railways: the Rocket, 1881. Early steam locomotive which won the Rainhill Trials, held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines 'For the famous trial, and the premium of £500, four engines were entered to Braithwaite and Ericson's "Novelty," Mr Timothy Harkworth's "Sanspariel," [sic] Stephenson and Company's "Rocket," and Mr. Burstall's "Perseverance."...The contest, however, was postponed...In the meantime, to satisfy the crowd, however, Mr. Stephenson attached the "Rocket" to a coach containing thirty persons, and ran them about at the rate of twenty-four to thirty miles an hour to their vast delight and astonishment. On the next day the Rocket was duly tested, and it more than satisfied every condition, the maximum velocity which it attained being twenty-nine miles an hour, or, as Mr. Smiles says, "about three times the speed that one of the judges of the competition had declared to be the limit of possibility"...The prize was, therefore, awarded to the "Rocket".' Illustration published in a special supplement to celebrate the centenary of the birth of British civil engineer and mechanical engineer George Stephenson (1781-1848). From "Illustrated London News", 1881.