1980

SJ4991 : 'Rocket 150' – 21: BR 46229 'Duchess of Hamilton'

taken 44 years ago, near to Rainhill, St Helens, England

'Rocket 150' – 21:  BR 46229 'Duchess of Hamilton'
'Rocket 150' – 21: BR 46229 'Duchess of Hamilton'
'Coronation' class locomotive introduced in 1937 by the London Midland Railway to work its principal express trains between London and Glasgow. The original locomotives were streamlined, but this was not carried by the whole class, and the streamlining was removed during the late 1940s. 'Duchess of Hamilton' is seen here in British Railways style of the 1960s. It had been restored to working order following a number of years on static display at Butlins Minehead holiday camp. It has since been rebuilt to its original streamlined condition.
Rocket 150

This was the name given to British Rail's celebration of 150 years since the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, Britain's first steam operated passenger main line.

The event took place at the location of the famous Rainhill Trials of 1829 LinkExternal link , at which the locomotive 'Rocket' was chosen out of 5 contestants to provide the type of locomotive for working the line. For the event, replicas were built of the three principal contestants to be enable to represent the Trials. These were George Stephenson's 'Rocket', Timothy Hackworth's 'Sans Pareil' and Braithwaite and Ericsson's 'Novelty'.

The event took the form of a cavalcade of a representative selection of British locomotives from 1829 onwards, presented over three days, 24, 25, 26 May 1980 over the stretch of line where the trials had taken place. The cavalcade was assembled at the sidings adjacent to Bold Colliery from where the cavalcade proceeded to the west of Rainhill station. Temporary grandstands were erected along both sides of the line for several hundred metres and provided excellent viewing for all spectators. Individual exhibits passed at approximately 5 minute intervals giving ample time to allow the PA announcer to give details to all spectators without overlap.

My own pictures attached to this shared description were taken on the first day, and a notable absentee from the collection is the replica of 'Rocket' itself. Sadly this suffered a derailment on some substandard track in the sidings at Bold Colliery sustaining damage that prevented from running on that day. After strenuous efforts to repair the damage to the locomotive, and the offending section of track, it was able to appear on the other two days.


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Alan Murray-Rust and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Class Locomotive [11] · Class Locomotive Introduced [7] · Duchess [3] ·
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SJ4991, 115 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Alan Murray-Rust   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Saturday, 24 May, 1980   (more nearby)
Submitted
Wednesday, 20 February, 2019
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SJ 4991 9167 [10m precision]
WGS84: 53:25.1663N 2:45.3094W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SJ 49881 91651
View Direction
Northeast (about 45 degrees)
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Image Type (about): geograph 
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