TributeLegacy
Create a tribute page
Back to map All in England

black plaque · England

Robert Stephenson

Photograph at the Robert Stephenson black plaque

International Historic Civil And Mechanical Engineering Landmark Liverpool and Manchester Railway Developments in transportation History. It was the first public railway for the scheduled transportation of passengers and freight between remote cities. A team led by George Stephenson (1781-1848) designed the 35-mile, double-tracked line. Overcoming numerous engineering challenges, including Olive Mount, The Sankey Valley and Chat Moss, the railway established the historic reputations of many engineers assigned to its various sections. The first ever locomotive trials at rainhill during 6-14 october 1829 pitted the horse treadmill cycloped against four steam locomotives. Novelty, Perseverance, Rocket, and Sans Pareil. Rocket, designed and built by Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), outperformed the others and proved that locomotive propulsion was practical. Still operating on its original alignment with many original structures, this railway established the basic format for almost all subsequent railways and rolling stock world-wide.

Inscription drawn from imported open data, awaiting original TributeLegacy editorial.

Source: Open Plaques. Geographic data via OpenStreetMap.

Nearby locations in England

Browse all memorials in England

Data sources

Location records are drawn from open, licence-clean datasets, kept here with attribution and gratitude to the people who maintain them.

  • Open Plaques, dedicated to the public domain (CC0). See openplaques.org.
  • Wikidata, available under the CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.
  • Historic England, National Heritage List for England, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. War memorial records are drawn from open community datasets (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, NHLE) — never from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is excluded.

Editorial descriptions, photography and tribute links are original TributeLegacy work, layered on top of the open data.

Directions to here