In the words of Robert Stephenson ‘the trials at Rainhill seem to have sent people railway mad’.
The Trials attracted thousands of spectators, crowding onto specially erected grandstands to watch the spectacle, but very few of them could have realised the significance of the drama unfolding before them. This was the moment when the future of railway travel would be decided. People and goods could travel faster – and more reliably than ever before and the Industrial Age had arrived.
The First Railway Tragedy - William Huskisson.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway line opened on 15 September 1830 with termini at Liverpool Road, Manchester (now part of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester) and Edge Hill, Liverpool.
The festivities of the opening day were marred when William Huskisson (born March 11, 1770), the popular Member of Parliament for Liverpool (also a statesman and financier), seized the opportunity of a temporary halt at Parkside near Newton le Willows to alight and talk to the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, through the Duke’s carriage window. Several members of the Duke’s party stepped onto the trackside to observe more closely. Huskisson went forward to greet the Duke but as he was leaving the train and standing on the track, he misjudged the speed of the approaching locomotive 'Rocket' approached on the parallel track, therefore was unable to get out of the engine’s way in time and his left leg was crushed by it, therefore becoming the world’s first railway passenger fatality.
William Huskisson was not killed instantly, the locomotive Northumbrian (driven by George Stephenson himself) was detached from the Duke’s train and rushed him to Eccles, where he died in the vicarage. The somewhat subdued party proceeded to Manchester where the Duke, who was deeply unpopular with the labouring classes, was given a lively reception (including bricks being thrown at him) before he returned to Liverpool. The monument where his remains are buried is the centrepiece of St James Cemetery, Liverpool. For further interest, please see first video link below.
The Development of the 'Rocket'
The progress and success of the L&MR can be said to be down to the perseverance of George Stephenson. He was opposed to using stationary engines on the line and pushed for the Rainhill Trials, leading to the onset of the new locomotive. The stationary engine continued to have a place in railway working where steep gradients were involved, but with the development of the locomotive, their use became less common. There were countless attempts to displace the locomotive in this form – water tube boilers, electric-transmission (as in the Heilman locomotives), turbine drive and gear drive, but on balance no other form equalled that of the winner of the Rainhill trials – an engine embodying a multi-tubular boiler and having direct drive from cylinder to wheel. It was this form created by Stephenson that was to endure almost one and a half centuries until it was replaced by another form of traction. The longevity of this form was not down to a lack of competition, but down to design lending itself to the necessary development over the coming years.
The only real difference between the Rocket and the last British Steam locomotive to be built was the provision of superheating, and the idea for that actually preceded George Stephenson, it had been thought of as far back as Trevithick. The most important outcome of the Trials was to establish the locomotive for general railway working at speeds never before imagined.
Locomotives had to be built for working the L&MR and these had to incorporate modifications to the Rocket design. The alterations required included lowering the cylinders, increasing the cylinder size and that of the driving wheels. The immediate successor to Rocket (which become No1 of the L&MR) was Meteor Numbered 2. It gave its name to the class comprised of a further three engines. These all had 10in by 16in cylinders, i.e. a diameter 2in greater than Rocket’s, and a stroke 1in less. The grate area (6ft) was the same. The evaporative heating surface was 300ft in the case of No2 and 308ft in the others of the class. All, like Rocket, had an outside firebox and no smokebox. As Nos 2 and 3 were delivered in January 1830 and Nos 4 and 5 the following month, it will be understood that Stephenson’s Newcastle works lost no time in starting production.
The subsequent four engines (Nos 7, 8, 9 and 11) all had 11in by 16in cylinders and a slightly larger grate area. In the case of Nos 7 and 8 the heating surface was 310ft but in that of Nos 9 and 11 it was respectively 412 and 407ft. Most important was the change on those two engines of the position and firebox – which was internal as distinct from the former external position.
The success of Rocket was rapidly followed by that of the L&MR and the development of passenger rail travel. In the first year of working the railways conveyed 460,000 passengers who paid £101,829 in fares, against an estimated £10,000. Goods traffic, expected to bring in £50,000, produced over £80,000, a combined total more than three times that forecast so it is small wonder that railway promotion was to develop into Railway Mania. Stephenson lost no time in building engines and was not slow in developing design. In the short space of ten months the Rocket type progressed from an engine with 8in by 17in cylinders, 138ft of heating surface and weight of 4 tons 6cwt to one with 11in by 16in cylinders, 412ft of heating surface, weighing 7 tons 7cwt. Of the eight other engines of the Rocket type, all had 5 ft diameter driving wheels, 31in larger than those of Rocket. For further interest, see second video link below.
Liverpool and Manchester Railway 1830 onwards
Not withstanding the unfortunate start to its career, the L&MR was very successful. Within a few weeks of opening it ran its first excursion trains, carried the first railway mails in the world, and was conveying road-rail containers for Pickfords. By the summer of 1831 it was carrying tens of thousands by special trains to Newton Races. Although the Act had allowed for it to be used by private carriers paying a toll, from the start the company decided to own and operate the trains itself.
Although the original intention had been to carry goods, the canal companies reduced their prices, (an indication that, perhaps the railwaymen had been right to suggest their charges were excessive) and the extra transit time was acceptable in most cases. In fact the line did not start carrying goods until December, when the first of some more powerful engines, Planet, was delivered. What was not expected was the line’s success in carrying passengers. The experience at Rainhill had shown that unprecedented speed could be achieved. The train was also cheaper and more comfortable than travel by road. So, at first, the company concentrated on this, a decision that had repercussions across the country and triggered “Railway Mania”.
Initially trains travelled at 17 miles per hour (27 km/h), due to the limitations of the track. Drivers could, and did, travel more quickly, but they would be reprimanded: it was found that excessive speeds could force apart the light rails, which were set onto individual stone blocks without cross-ties. In 1837 work started to replace the original fish-belly rail with parallel rail of 50 pounds per yard (23kg/m), on sleepers.
The tunnel from Lime Street to Edge Hill was fully completed in 1836, and when it opened carriages were separated from their engines and lowered to Lime Street station by gravity, their descent controlled by brakemen, and hauled back up to Edge Hill by rope from a stationary engine. The tunnel is approximately 1,980 yards (1,811 m) long.
On 30 July 1842 work started to extend the line from Ordsall Lane to the new Manchester Victoria station. The extension was opened on 4 May 1844 and Liverpool Road station was thereafter used for goods traffic for over a century.
Being one of the first railways, many lessons had to be learnt from experience, but not many passengers were killed except by their own negligence. The L&MR developed the practice of red signals for stop, green for caution and white for clear, which spread by the early 1840s to other railways in Britain and the United States. These colours later changed to the more familiar red, yellow and green. The L&MR was also responsible for the gauge of 4 ft 8in (1,435 mm), which came to be used more or less universally. In 1845 the L&MR was absorbed by its principal business partner, the Grand Junction Railway (GJR). The following year the GJR formed part of the London and North Western Railway.