"Puffing Billy" and the Prize "Rocket" or, the story of the Stephensons and our Railways.

There was no more waiting for work at the locomotive factory in Newcastle. Orders immediately arrived from the directors to build eight large engines for the new road, and all t...

One, two, three years passed by, and the Liverpool and Manchester project started up again. It was not dead, it had only slept; and the three years had almost worn out the patie...

One step forward; yes, a great one too, Stephenson thought. His beloved locomotive was to have a chance of being properly introduced to the great English public; and he felt tha...

At the first meeting of the directors, a man to put the enterprise through was to be chosen. Who? The Rennies were anxious to get the appointment. They naturally expected it. Th...

It appears strange to us that so simple a thing as the laying of a rail or the making of a tunnel seems to be, should have taken years of thought and experiment to do it. Nothin...

What useful little fellow is this, carrying his father's dinner to him at the coal-pit? He takes care, also, of his little brothers and sisters, keeping them clear of the coal-w...

Familiar as it has become to us, who does not stop to look with interest at the puffing, snorting, screaming steam-horse? And who does not rejoice in the iron-rail, which binds...

Manchester, thirty miles south-east of Liverpool, is the great centre of our cotton trade. Its cloths are found in every market in the world. Cotton coming to Liverpool is sent...

Busy as were his hands, his mind was no less busy, catching up and using every scrap of knowledge which came in his way. And it was a perpetual surprise to his fellow-workmen to...

George was now twenty; sober, faithful, and expert. Finding a little spare time on his hands, he took to cobbling to increase his gains, and from this source contrived to save h...