The Rainhill trials settle the question of traction
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway's directors had not decided whether to work the line with locomotives or with stationary engines hauling on cables, and ran a public competition on a level stretch at Rainhill to find out. Robert Stephenson's Rocket, with a multi-tubular boiler and a blastpipe sharpening the draught, completed the trials and won. The decision to buy locomotives rather than cable haulage shaped every railway built afterwards.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Liverpool and Manchester Railway · route · United Kingdom · not located
- The British railway network · network · United Kingdom · not located
- The main-line steam locomotive · technology · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Stephenson's Rocket — collection record
Supports the identity, builder and date of the locomotive that won the Rainhill trials, and by extension the decision of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to adopt locomotive rather than cable haulage. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted; the collection record was not opened in this session and the surviving object's current display location is not asserted here.
Science Museum Group · locomotive built 1829 · Partly verified
Science Museum Group collection record for the locomotive Rocket, built by Robert Stephenson and Company, 1829
Recorded on Liverpool and Manchester Railway
- The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens
- The Rainhill trials settle the question of traction
- The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens
- The Great Exhibition
- Electrification of the Trans-Siberian is completed
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Electrification of the Trans-Siberian is completed · 2002
- The Great Exhibition · 1 May – October 1851
- The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens · 1830-09-15
- The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens · 1825-09-27