Turbo Power Steam – Rocket meets Turbinia

The arrival of the Great North Exhibition has seen Stephenson’s Rocket return to Newcastle where it is on display at city’s Discovery Museum alongside Charles Parsons’ Turbinia. Rocket’s homecoming to the region where it was built also brings both residents of and visitors to Newcastle-upon-Tyne home to North East England’s contribution to industrial development.

Speed pioneers on rails and water, Rocket and Turbinia

 at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

More than simply two speed pioneers for their respective modes of transport sat side-by-side, Rocket and Turbinia also represent over 50 years of development in steam power, a development playing a huge part not just in transport, but also their contribution to shaping the modern world. Meanwhile, going a little deeper into trials and demonstrations from which these innovations came into being also opens us to how different the world we live in today could have been if certain ideas trialed back then were commercially viable for their time.

The invention of the steam locomotive is credited to Richard Trevithick, but it was through a combination of trial and improvisation from which George Stephenson saw a possible commercial use for a moving steam locomotive when passengers rode in locomotive-hauled empty coal wagons on the Stockton and Darlington Railway which opened in 1825.  Public attitudes to early steam locomotives were mixed as they were highly unreliable and were seen by some as noisy, filthy and as a fire hazard with their tall chimneys shooting off sparks. Indeed, the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world’s first purpose-built steam-hauled passenger railway to be opened in 1829, were initially divided over whether motive power should be provided by moving locomotives or rope haulage powered by stationary steam engines.

At the time, many thought that the steady supply of power from a stationary engine on a rope-hauled system would be preferable to the unreliable and temperamental nature of steam locomotives. However, working on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway as Chief Engineer, George Stephenson convinced the line’s directors that locomotives would be the better option since the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was to be a two-way line, unlike the Stockton and Darlington Railway with was a single line. Meanwhile, his son Robert, who had just returned from working on engineering projects in South America, was working on improving locomotive design at South Street Works a lump-of-coal’s throw away from the Discovery Museum where his improved design currently resides.

Aware that public attitudes to steam locomotives were still largely indifferent, the Liverpool and Manchester’s directors still needed convincing that locomotives were up to the job. To find the right locomotive for the job, they invited the leading engineers of the day, including the Stephensons, Timothy Hackworth and a few others to enter their locomotives in the Rainhill Trials, offering a £500 prize to the winners. Before a crowd of over fifteen thousand, Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials, achieving an top speed of 30mph, an astonishing achievement for its time. Meanwhile, Timothy Hackworth’s entrant Sans Pareil almost completed the trials until one its cylinders cracked. Though some historians have since suggested that Sans Pareil was sabotaged, a faulty casting is perhaps the more likely explanation. A further shadow was cast over steam locomotives during the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway when William Huskisson, President of the Board of Trade, was run over and killed by a locomotive.

Despite this tragic incident, so as not to disappoint huge crowds and high-profile guests invited by the Stephensons, including the then Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington and the popular actress Fanny Kemble, who had turned out to witness a miracle of the age, the trains were encouraged to continue running. The Stephensons’ eye for publicity enabled the historical event to obtain widespread coverage nationally and internationally. Once it became apparent that quicker and affordable inter-city travel was possible, plans were made to connect Liverpool and Manchester with the rest of the UK, meaning that journeys that previously meant days by horse-drawn carriage could be done within a day.

Connecting cylinders directly to the driving wheels improved 

enabled Rocket to run faster than earlier steam locomotives

To improve the performance and reliability of the steam locomotive, Robert Stephenson experimented with re-positioning the cylinders so that they connected directly to the wheels. Over fifty years later, Charles Parsons set about experimenting with designs to improve speed on water. In the present-day world, we are used to trans-continental journeys being a matter of hours, but pre-Turbinia, a journey to North America from Europe meant weeks at sea. Like the steam locomotive, trials of steam turbines to power sea-going vessels initially experience many teething troubles. But after experimenting with several small models and different thicknesses of steel, Parsons’ found that the most efficient arrangement was to use nine propellers on three shafts attached to three turbines enabled greater propeller efficiency, while a thin metal hull of no more than three sixteenths of an inch thick contributed to higher speed.

Like the Stephensons, Parsons also had an eye for publicity to ensure that the powerful and influential, including the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) and the public at large would be made aware of his innovation and its potential. Taking it to the Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Naval Review at Spithead in 1897, the Prince of Wales and the Admiralty were impressed by its amazing speed of 34 knots (40mph), way faster than anything they had previously seen run on water.

Turbinia's lightweight hull

Turbinia was almost destroyed completely in an accident in 1907 when it was cut in half by a ship that had just been launched. After being repaired, it completed its last activity of running alongside the great Cunard Liner Mauritania on its trial run before being retired as a museum exhibit. Like Rocket had contributed to making travel across land much faster and meant more affordable movement of goods and passengers, Turbinia’s success as an experimental vessel enabled faster sea travel with future vessels being powered by turbine engines. A transatlantic voyage was now a matter of days rather than weeks. Like railways brought cod and haddock to those living inland, turbine-powered sea travel saw higher quantities of exotic fruits and spices circulate in a much shorter space of time.

A picture of Rocket in the booking hall at the End of the World

Train, Ushuaia, Argentina

The shaping of the modern world from Tyneside, to Liverpool and Manchester and all the way to the End of the World Train, the world’s southernmost railway in Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America, where a picture of Rocket is housed in its booking hall, owes much to the perseverance and perhaps more so, the public relations skills of Parsons and the Stephensons. Just imagine how different the concept of modern railways would be had the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s directors had over-ruled Stephenson and decided upon stationary engines? Or elsewhere had rats not eaten the leather flap that trains ran along on Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s vacuum-powered Atmospheric Railway? Without the realization of the potential of steam power on which Rocket had a major influence, is it possible that the invention of the turbine, and thus Turbinia, may not have been possible.

These some of many ‘what ifs’ one may consider seeing these two speed pioneers a few feet apart close to where they were designed. Thinking about this within the few feet that separates them side-be-side, it becomes apparent to the museum visitor just how closely inter-connected their development and influence is.

Rocket is on display next to Turbinia at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, until 9th September. For more information, including visiting, click here