One of four pages of a draft letter to the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Board by Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850), in which he refers to the Rainhill Trials, a competition to find the most efficient locomotive for haulage on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Hackworth was an English engineer and a pioneer in the construction and operation of steam locomotives. In May 1825 he was appointed to the Stockton and Darlington Railway as the first locomotive superintendent of a railway company. In 1829 he built the 'Sans Pareil' which was entered in the Rainhill Trials, but - as the letter attests - 'failed in performing the task asigned to her by the judges'. The locomotive was subsequently used on the Bolton and Leigh Railway.
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