It was a seven days' wonder in New York when it arrived
in May, 1829. Then Allen shipped it to Honesdale, Pennsylvania,
where the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company had a tramway to
bring down coal from the mountains to the terminal of the canal.
On the crude wooden rails of this tramway Allen placed the
Stourbridge Lion and ran it successfully at the rate of ten miles
an hour. But in actual service the Stourbridge Lion failed and
was soon dismantled.
Pass now to Rainhill, England, and witness the birth of the
modern locomotive, after all these years of labor. In the same
year of 1829, on the morning of the 6th of October, a great crowd
had assembled to see an extraordinary race--a race, in fact,
without any parallel or precedent whatsoever. There were four
entries but one dropped out, leaving three: The Novelty, John
Braithwaite and John Ericsson; The Sanspareil, Timothy Hackworth;
The Rocket, George and Robert Stephenson. These were not horses;
they were locomotives. The directors of the London and Manchester
Railway had offered a prize of five hundred pounds for the best
locomotive, and here they were to try the issue.
The contest resulted in the triumph of Stephenson's Rocket. The
others fell early out of the race. The Rocket alone met all the
requirements and won the prize.
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