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Rocket Revolution
photograph of Rocket Replica
Rocket was built to compete in the Rainhill Trials, a competition held in 1829 to select suitable motive power for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
In Rocket, Robert Stephenson combined the key technologies of blast pipe and multi-tube boiler to transform steam locomotives from lumbering colliery workhorses to engines of industrial revolution.
The blast pipe fed exhaust steam up the locomotive chimney, thus drawing hot gases from the fire, through the boiler. The faster the engine worked, the more steam was exhausted, so the draught was increased.
The multi-tube boiler greatly increased the heating surface inside the boiler by replacing the traditional single large boiler tube with many small diameter tubes. The greater surface area of hot boiler tubes greatly increased the ability of the boiler to generate steam pressure.
Rocket was only an experiment, however, and Robert Stephenson significantly altered the locomotive after the Rainhill Trials. For this reason a sectioned replica Rocket is displayed at the National Railway Museum. Stephenson’s Rocket, can be seen at the Science Museum in London.
The NRM also operates a working replica Rocket, built in 1979.
Fact File
- Name: Liverpool & Manchester Railway 0-2-2 Rocket
- Class: Unclassified
- Built: 1829
- Designer: Robert Stephenson
- Weight: 4½ tons (4.6 tonnes)
Locomotive inventory number 1862-5
Photograph reference number NRM_CT_937218