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The Rainhill Trials were an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October of 1829 in Rainhill, Merseyside (between Liverpool and Manchester). For the game see 1829 (board game. Year 1829 ( MDCCCXXIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display Rainhill is a Civil parish and large village in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England. Merseyside is a Metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1365900

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 Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR was the world's first inter-city passenger Railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance 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. John Urpeth Rastrick ( January 26 1780 &ndash November 1 1856) was one of the first English Steam locomotive builders

Contents

Rules

Locomotives that were entered were to be subjected to a variety of tests and conditions. These were amended at various points, but were eventually nailed down to:

Entries

The preserved Rocket
The preserved Rocket

Ten locomotives were entered, but on the day the competition began -- 6 October 1829 -- only five locomotives actually began the tests:

Competition

Locomotives were run two or three per day, and several tests for each locomotive were performed over the course of several days.

The Rainhill stretch of the Railway was dead level for a mile or so: a perfect site for the Trials.

Cycloped was the first to drop out of the competition. Built with "legacy technology", it used a horse walking on a drive belt for power, and was withdrawn after an accident caused the horse to burst through the floor of the engine.

Next to retire was Perseverance. Damaged en route to the competition, Burstall spent five days repairing it. When it failed to reach the required 10 miles per hour on its first tests the next day, it was withdrawn from the trial. It was granted a £25 consolation prize.

Sans Pareil nearly completed the trials, though at first there was some doubt as to whether it would be allowed to compete as it was 300 lb (136 kg) overweight. However, it did eventually complete eight trips before cracking a cylinder. Despite the failure it was purchased by the Liverpool & Manchester, where it served for two years before being leased to the Bolton and Leigh Railway. History The company obtained its Act of Parliament on 31 March 1825 to build a line "from the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal at Bolton to the

The last drop-out was Novelty. In complete contrast to Cycloped it was cutting-edge for 1829, lighter and considerably faster than the other locomotives in the competition. It was accordingly the crowd favourite. Reaching a then-astonishing 28 mph (45 km/h) on the first day of competition, it later suffered some damage to a boiler pipe which could not be fixed properly on site in the time allotted. Nevertheless it continued its run on the next day, but upon reaching 15 mph (24 km/h) the pipe gave way again and damaged the engine severely enough that it had to drop out.

So, the Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials. It averaged 12 miles per hour (achieving a top speed of 30 miles per hour) hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the £500 prize. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

Rocket 150

86214 Sans Pareil at the Rocket 150 event
86214 Sans Pareil at the Rocket 150 event

In 1980 the Rocket 150 celebration was held to mark the 150th Anniversary of the trials.

A replica of Novelty was built for the event, which was also attended by a replicas Sans Pareil and Rocket (plus coach).

The event was also attended by:

Two Class 86 locomotives 86214 Sans Pareil[1] and 86235 Novelty[2] were painted in a variation of the Large Logo Rail Blue livery where the BR logo was replaced by Rocket 150 motif on a yellow background. The British Rail Class 86 was the standard Electric locomotive built during the 1960s developed as a result of testing with the earlier Classes 81, The history of British Rail 's corporate liveries is quite complex

Restaging

A replica of Sans Pareil at a 1980 restaging of the Rainhill Trials.
A replica of Sans Pareil at a 1980 restaging of the Rainhill Trials. For the West End theatre founded in 1806 see Adelphi Theatre Sans Pareil was a Steam locomotive built by Timothy

In a recent (2002) restaging of the Rainhill Trials using replica engines, neither Sans Pareil (11 out of 20 runs) and Novelty (10 out of 20 runs) completed the course. See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. In calculating the speeds and fuel efficiencies, it was found that Rocket would still have won fair and square, since its relatively modern technology made it a much more reliable locomotive than the others. Novelty almost matched it in terms of efficiency, but its firebox design caused it to gradually slow to a halt due to a build up of molten ash (called "clinker") cutting off the air supply. The restaged trials were run over a section of line in Llangollen, Wales, and were the subject of a BBC Timewatch documentary. Llangollen (ɬaŋ'ɡoɬɛn is a small town in Denbighshire, north-east Wales, situated on the River Dee and on the edge of the Berwyn Timewatch is a long-running British television series showing documentaries on historical subjects spanning all human history

This restaging should not be taken as accurate as there were major compromises made for television and because of the differences in crew experience, the fuel used, the modifications made to the replicas for modern safety rules, modern construction methods, and following operating experience. Sensible comparisons were made between the engines only after calcuations took into account the differences.

None of the replicas is without major differences from the 1829 originals.

References

  1. ^ Marsden, Colin (1981). Motive Power Recognition :1 - Locomotives. Shepperton: Ian Allen Ltd, 133. ISBN 0 7110 1109 5.  
  2. ^ Nixon, Les (1983). BR Colour Album. London: Jane's Publishing Company Limited. ISBN 0 7106 0287 1.  

See also

External links

1829 (South is a railroad operations and share -trading Board game in the 18xx series first published by Hartland Trefoil Reiner Knizia (ˈraɪnɚ ˈknɪtsiːə is a prolific German-style board game designer
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