The Rainhill Trials was a competition held in October 1929 between five locomotives to determine who would receive the locomotive contract for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
In October of 1829, on a hamlet of the turnpike road between the port city of Liverpool, and the booming textile industry of Manchester, a competition that would alter the future was held. Prior to the trials, horses were the ideal mode of transportation, however, with multiple engineers experimenting with steam power, it was believed that an alternative to horses was on the horizon. With the successful Stockton & Darlington Railway completed and operating with steam locomotives, the merchants in Liverpool and Manchester yearned for a railway to ship their goods, as the canals and road systems were often slow and overcrowded.
The Rainhill trials were held to determine who would be awarded the locomotive contract for the under construction, Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The trials took place at the flat lands of Rainhill, county Lancashire (Merseyside), as miles of flat land were available between the two bustling cities. The victor of the trials would receive the contract to build locomotives for the railway and a monetary reward of £500.
The trials at Rainhill would successfully prove to the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, that locomotive traction was far superior to horses. Locomotives outperformed horses and cost less to operate overall. After the trials, the Stephensons and other prominent locomotive builders beginning to produce locomotives en mass, locomotive traction soon hit the shores of the United States, and continental European countries as well.
“That the place of tryal for the Specimen Engines on the 1st October next be the level space between the two inclined planes at Rainhill; and that the Engineer prepare a double Railway for the two miles of level, and a single line from Rainhill down the plane to the Roby Embankment.”
Rolt, L.T.C.. George and Robert Stephenson.