Novelty (locomotive) - After The Rainhill Trials

After The Rainhill Trials

Once all the repairs were completed, Novelty made a number of successful demonstration runs but it was too late to have any effect on the competition. It is sometimes claimed that one of these demonstration runs included the locomotive reaching a speed of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), but there is little to back this up and it may be a misinterpretation of a newspaper report trying to give an impression of the great speeds that the Rainhill engines were achieving.

Two further engines were built by Ericsson and Braithwaite named William IV and Queen Adelaide. These were generally larger and more robust than Novelty and differed in a number of details (for example, it is thought that a different design of blower was used which was an ‘Induced Draught’ type, sucking the gases from the fire). The pair ran trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway but the railway declined to purchase the new designs.

Novelty was transferred to the St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway and worked there for a few years. During its time there (around 1833) it received new cylinders and a new boiler.

Somehow, all the wheels and both cylinders (assumed to be the original one not those from the 1833 rebuild) survived.

During 1929 the original wheels and one cylinder were incorporated into a full scale, non-working model that is now on display in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. This early replica was rebuilt in 1988 and currently includes batteries and an electric motor to allow it to move (all wheels are driven making the engine a 4wBE), although the steam components are non-functional. The other cylinder is on display at Rainhill Public Library.

No other British locomotives are known to have been built in this style. Comparisons are made with 20th-century vertical-boilered engines, such as those by Sentinel of Shrewsbury, but in fact the principles were very different.