In 1824
Edward Pease, George
Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson,
formed a company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne
to make the locomotives for the Stockton
& Darlington line. George Stephenson knew of Hackworth's
work on the Puffing Billy and
recruited him as superintendent of locomotive engine production.
Hackworth worked with George Stephenson on Locomotion
and was on board when it made its first public journey on 27th September,
1825.
In 1828 the boiler of the Locomotion
exploded, killing the driver. She was rebuilt
but did not perform well. The main problem was its inability to
produce enough steam for a twenty-mile run. Timothy Hackworth took
over responsibility for the Locomotion
and enlarged the boiler and installed a return fire tube. This improved
the performance of the locomotive but in 1827 was replaced by Hackworth's
new locomotive, the Royal
George. Hackworth's locomotive was mounted on
six wheels, the cylinders were vertical, inverted and outside the
boiler, and pistons and connecting rods drove the rear wheels.
Drawing
of Royal George in 1827
In
1829 the directors of the proposed Liverpool
& Manchester company were unsure whether to use locomotives
or stationary engines on their line. To help them reach a decision,
it was decided to hold a competition where the winning locomotive
would be awarded £500. The idea being that if the locomotive
was good enough, it would be the one used on the new railway. Timothy
Hackworth, now manager of the Stockton
& Darlington Railway, decided to enter the competition.
This was difficult as he had no factory of his own and the manufacture
of the different parts had to be produced by local companies.
The competition was held at Rainhill
during October 1829. Each competing locomotive had to haul a load
of three times its own weight at a speed of at least 10 mph. The
locomotives had to run twenty times up and down the track at Rainhill
which made the distance roughly equivalent to a return trip between
Liverpool and Manchester.
Afraid that heavy locomotives would break the rails, only machines
that weighed less than six tons could compete in the competition.
Ten locomotives were originally entered for the Rainhill
Trials but only five turned up and two of these were withdrawn
because of mechanical problems. At first there were doubts whether
Hackworth's Sans Pareil would compete
as she weighed more than six tons. However, it was eventually agreed
to let Timothy
Hackworth show what his new
locomotive could do. After a promising start the Sans
Pareil suffered a cracked cylinder. Ironically, the cylinder
had been cast by the company owned by his rival, George
Stephenson. Despite its failure to win the competition, the
owners of the Liverpool & Manchester
railway decided to purchase Sans Pareil
and was kept in service until it was sold in 1831.
In 1833 Hackworth decided to leave to form his own Soho locomotive
building company at Shildon. The company was very successful and
Hackworth lived in a fine house facing the Shildon. Railway Station
(now the Timothy Hackworth Museum). Considered to be now an old
fashioned designer, Hackworth concentrated on building slow, heavy
freight locomotives. Timothy
Hackworth died in 1850.
Timothy Hackworth's house in Shildon
