Stephenson's Rocket Replica (5)

Stephenson's Rocket was an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement, built in Newcastle at the Forth Street Works of Robert Stephenson and Company in 1829.

A common misconception is that Rocket was the first steam locomotive. In fact the first steam locomotive to run on tracks was built by Richard Trevithick 25 years earlier, but his designs were not developed beyond the experimental stage. Then followed the first commercially successful twin cylinder steam locomotives (The Salamanca) built by Matthew Murray in Holbeck for the Middleton Railway between Middleton and Leeds, West Yorkshire. George Stephenson, as well as a number of other engineers, had built steam locomotives before. Rocket was in some ways an evolution, not a revolution.

Rocket's claim to fame is that it was the first 'modern' locomotive, drawing together several recent strands of technological improvement, some tried elsewhere and some still experimental, to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day, and the template for most steam locomotives since. In fact, the standard steam locomotive design is often called the "Stephensonian" locomotive.

In 1979 a replica Rocket was built by Locomotion Enterprises for the 150th anniversary celebrations.[6] It has a shorter chimney than the original in order to the clear the bridge at Rainhill: the trackbed is deeper than in the 19th century, giving less headroom. This replica is based at the National Railway Museum, York.