"Rocket and its Rivals"

delticbob · Post by **delticbob** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:50 pm

Set your video's time.

Next week, on Fridays Jan 24th, at 9.00pm on BBC 2, there is a 'Timewatch' programme about how Stephenson's beast won the Rainhill Trials by default, because the other competitors suffered premature withdrawal.

Using replica's there is a rerun to see if any of the other loco's could have out run Rocket.

Bob

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:54 pm

I'll be watching it, but the discussion is old hat. None of the others was a serious contender. I hope this does not turn out to be a Stephenson-bashing programme.

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:03 pm

lol, they only suffered premature withdrawal because they either failed during the trials, or didn't comply with the entry requirements

lol i'll have a quick read through some books a sec, to check iv'e got my facts right

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:36 pm

hmmm, yes here we are,

i can only glean a few sketchy details from what ive got but they should help a little,

prize for best loco, 500 pounds + purchase of loco + contract for supply of more,

requirements included:
the need for the loco's to weigh no more than 6 tons,
and the need for the locos to pull three times their weight at 10mph

the course was 1.5 miles long

four locos passed requirements:
Sanspareil, built by Timothy hackworth,
Novelty, John Ericsson and John Braithwaite
Rocket, by the stevensons
and Perseverence by Timothy Burstall,

numorous other entrants failed to qualify for the trials,

each loco was required to make 20 trips, at no lesser average than 10mph, hauling set loads,

Perseverence was damaged on the way to the trials, and although repaired was withdrawn before the trials commenced,

Novelty proved to be a speedy loco but was not very good at handling the heavier loads , and its bellows exploded after several successful runs,

Sanspareil suffered serious faliure on the 8th trip and was withdrawn,

Rocket however hauled the required loads, recorded an average of 14mph over the full 60 miles,
top speed attained 29mph, and no mecanical failures,
thus won the trials,

lol , well thats history lesson over , lol

it may not be entirely correct, after all i am sourcing this all from one book but it should give you a rough idea of what happened,

must have been fasinating at the time, wish i could have been there to see it, lol

eddief · Post by **eddief** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:47 pm

Wasn't Novelty supplied with parts made by Stephenson and it was these parts that caused it to be withdrawn? (I know it was 1 of the 3 also ran engines).

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 11:47 pm

Sounds like what I have read Wookey. Reading between the lines of that brief account Rocket was simply in a class of it's own compared to what other engineers were building at the time. I like Tom Rolts account from his biography of the two Stephensons although he seems to be an apologist for Robert and so gives him the credit for the design.

Possibly parts in other locos were manufactured at Robert Stephenson & Co's works but there were not that many railway engineering plants around in 1829...

Hackworth had a good set up at Shildon but apart from the Stephensons no-one else was in the running really.

Looking forward to the programme.

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 1:12 am

yeah should be interesting to see the replica's

i have to admit i find these early locomotive very interesting, lol their just so quaint and....prototypical if you know what i mean, like experiments, i suppose its the fact that they were the first of their kind,

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 10:43 am

Thanks for that info wookey... shouldn't you have put a spoiler warning at the top of the post though? Now I know which engine wins.

I'll be at the beer fest when it's on... Let's hope the VCR has enough spare tape once Mrs Fodda's finished programming it to record all the soaps.

Stooopidperson · Post by **Stooopidperson** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 10:54 am

Why don't we just make an activity for it in MSTS?

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 10:56 am

We'd need the Rainhill track and a few more engines produced for one thing.

Stooopidperson · Post by **Stooopidperson** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 10:58 am

The Rocket has already been made.

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 11:27 am

Yes... hence the more in my last post.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 12:43 am

I take back what I said. A very interesting programme and not what I at first thought. A FULL reproduction of the Rainhill course and conditions at Carrog on the Llangollen railway (activity easily redo-able!) using the replica Rocket and Sans Pareil from the NRM and the replica Novelty from Sweden, brought over and rebuilt after 20 years as a static exhibit especially for the purpose.

My only concern was the dreadfull geekiness of the steam enthusiasts. The NRM bod was fine as was the main adjudicater bloke but to a man th erest were anoraks. My wife watched with me and her coments, although they made me cringe I had to agree were fair.

Anal retentives the lot of them!

The general result was that Novelty was just too much of a lightweight to be really useful in service and had Sans Pareil not cracked a cylinder and had a failed water pump in 1829 then her performance may have been pretty much identical to Rockets. The final summing up was that Rockets multi-tube boiler (first of it's kind in the world) was such an advance over Hackworth's return tube that there was no question of the superior design.

wookey · Post by **wookey** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 3:54 pm

lol, yeah i know what you mean about the blokes there m8

i thought it was quite good , Sans Pareil definately suprised me,
its coupled wheels seem to be very sensible thinking for the time,
it did look a solid loco, lol funny driving position tho,

Rocket with the multi tube boiler and the more conventional cylinders was clearly the most modern and advanced design though, shame it was a single wheeler,

Novelty looked interesting, it was very compact, but too light really,
maybe with a conventional boiler it would have been ok, but even then i think it would have been a bit of a lightweight, i didn't get a good look at that part of the program, did it have inside cylinders or were they mounted vertically somewhere?

lol when they pushed novelty out of the NRM building, past that
GWR 4-6-0 it certainly made you realise how tiny these things were didn't it.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 10:53 pm

I think the GWR 4-6-0 was Lode Star. The Novelty was tiny wasn't it? I would hazard a guess at inside cylinders working almost vertically. Apparently Ericsson built horse drawn fire engines the boiler on which pumped water by steam pressure. He just used his normal vertical boilered fire engine design and bunged a couple of cylinders on it to drive one axle, and added flanges to the wheels. So it was a 2-2-0 I reckon, unless there were coupling rods between the frames? Surprising how well it did really!

Yes I thought Sans Pareil looked the business and seemed to have lots of stamina.