The Rainhill Trials were an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in October 1829 for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Five engines competed, running back and forth along a mile length of level track at Rainhill, in Lancashire (now Merseyside).

Stephenson's Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials, and was declared the winner. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.

Background

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 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 engineering were selected as judges: John Urpeth Rastrick, a locomotive engineer of Stourbridge, Nicholas Wood, a mining engineer from Killingworth with considerable locomotive design experience and John Kennedy, a Manchester cotton spinner and a major proponent of the railway.

Coordinates: 53°24′56″N 2°45′45″W / 53.41566°N 2.76253°W / 53.41566; -2.76253

Rainhill is a large village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, in Merseyside, England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 10,853.

Historically part of Lancashire, Rainhill was formerly a township within the ecclesiastical parish of Prescot, and hundred of West Derby. Following the Local Government Act 1894, it became part of the Whiston Rural District.

Rainhill is most famous for being the location of a pioneering competition to decide a suitable design for use on the new Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first inter-city passenger railway which was routed through the village. The Rainhill Trials of 1829 resulted in the selection of Stephenson's Rocket as the world's first "modern" steam locomotive.

History

Early history

Rainhill has been recorded since Norman times but its name is believed to come from the Old English personal name of Regna or Regan. It is thought that around the time of the Domesday Book that Rainhill was a part of one of the townships within the "Widnes fee". Recordings have shown that in the year of 1246, Roger of Rainhill died and the township was divided into two halves for each of his daughters. One half was centred on the now standing Rainhill Manor public house, see Rainhill Stoops below, and the other centred on Rainhill Hall, just off Blundell's Lane.