All steamed up for rail anniversary

THE Penydarren could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called beautiful. Black, squat and lumbering, she looks like an up-ended hot water tank on wheels. Beauty, however, isn't only skin deep. Suggest she is less than easy on the eye to Jim Rees and he is affronted. "

The design is beautiful!" he says.

The Penydarren's design certainly solved a problem beautifully. What Cornishman Richard Trevithick created two centuries ago was the world's first working steam locomotive. We know it worked: because on February 21 1804 (200 years ago on Saturday) it completed the world's first recorded steam-powered journey.

The seven-ton loco, complete with its odd-looking eight-foot flywheel, hauled 70 passengers, ten tons of iron and five wagons nine miles from the Penydarren iron works in Wales to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal.

Just how ground-shaking that achievement was it is hard to appreciate today. The world changed on February 21 1804. The Penydarren's successful journey was the first time human beings had travelled other than on foot or with the help of horses. It began the revolution in transport that led not only to the high-speed trains of today but also to the motor car.

To mark that historic occasion, staff at the National Railway Museum in York have been restoring to full working order the replica of the Penydarren that is on loan there. It will be the star of the show when, from May 29 to June 6, the NRM hosts what will be one of the UK's biggest rail festivals to celebrate Penydarren's first historic journey and the 200 years of train travel that have followed.

Ironically, when Trevithick designed Penydarren he had no idea that he was about to change the world for ever, points out Jim, the NRM's rail vehicle collection manager. He hadn't even thought of his locomotive as a means of moving people or things around: it was intended simply as a mobile power source that could be moved from one mine or factory to another.

The great steam-powered engines of the day were mammoth structures used to drive hammers or power factories. Once they had been built, they were immovable. Designing a power source that could be transported from one location to another would clearly be a great advantage.

The key to the success of Penydarren was miniaturisation. Standard steam-powered engines of the day could generate only 5lbs per square inch of pressure. In Penydarren, Trevithick increased that by a factor of eight, allowing a far smaller machine to generate the same power as the lumbering monsters that had gone before.

The smaller size made it feasible to build a mobile power source. "And as soon as you had done that, made it mobile, then it became self-mobile," Jim says. The age of the steam train had been born.

That first journey was merely the result of a bet. Rival iron works bosses Samuel Homfray (Trevithick's employer at Penydarren) and Richard Crawshay had wagered 500 guineas each on the outcome.

Trevithick won and made history. His seven-ton locomotive - made of riveted wrought-iron - was so heavy, however, it broke the cast-iron track it ran on and was quickly retired.

It was put to use instead driving a power hammer, which has led some people to suggest it was a failure. "It was not!" says Jim indignantly. "It was put to work doing what it was designed for, which was driving a hammer."

The replica of Penydarren - "the Penydarren engine", as it was known at the time - on show at the NRM was built by the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum (WIMM) in 1981. It has been on display at the NRM since 1998, but has never worked under its own steam since coming to York.

Until now, that is. Engineers have been working on the replica for six months, preparing for its track test today, and visitors to the NRM's 200th anniversary Railfest festival running from May 29 will be able to see it in action.

Getting the replica back into working order wasn't easy, says Dave Burrows, conservation workshop manager at the NRM. It failed its hydraulic test once, and only when it passed its steam test on February 10 could he and his team heave a sigh of relief.

The replica is a modern approximation of the original, using up-to-date techniques and materials - with a welded boiler, for example, rather than riveted cast iron.

But while Dave has little love for the copy, what it does do is remind him what brilliant craftsmen the people who built the original Penydarren were.

The boiler built to withstand 40lbs per square inch of pressure, was made of patches of wrought iron riveted together and sealed by hammering the metal plates together.

"It really would have been awe-inspiring," he says. "I can only imagine the skills they must have had to have made that with the equipment they had then."

Penydarren, while the undoubted star of the show, is not the only engine Dave's team at the NRM have been working on to get ready for the Railfest.

City of Truro, the steam locomotive which in May 1904 became the first train to reach 100mph, has also been restored to full running order to mark the centenary of its own record. It, too, will be taking pride of place at Railfest. Unlike Penydarren, the City of Truro is the real thing, the actual train which set that speed record.

Altogether, nearly 50 locomotives, engines and other vehicles will be on display at the NRM during the nine days of Railfest, each representing a different chapter in the story of the train.

Many will be being put through their paces to offer visitors an unrivalled range of rides.

The world's only working replica of Stephenson's Rocket will be among them, with visitors able to ride in its authentic open carriages; as will the world's oldest steamable narrow gauge locomotive, Prince.

Other locomotives on display will be the L&NWR's Cornwall, built in 1837; the Princess Elizabeth, built in 1933; the Dame Vera Lynn, built for war service in 1944 - and, taking the Age of the Train right into the future, Virgin's Pendolino tilting train.

To accommodate the visiting trains, the NRM has laid on three extra 'railways', each with a different gauge, in an area at the back of the museum.

Railfest will be about more than coming to gawp at these engines, says Railfest Project Manager Bob Gwynne.

Live theatre and music, traditional funfair attractions, classic film footage and a Great Railway Bazaar are also planned for what is intended as a fabulous family festival.

"The whole point of a festival is that there should be lots of fun things to do as well as see," Bob say. "I doubt if there has ever been a rail event in this country offering such a wide range of locomotives and vehicles, train rides and family entertainment - it should be a truly memorable celebration!"

Entry to the main area of the NRM will remain free throughout the festival, but entry to Railfest itself will be by ticket only: prices £7.50 adult, £5 concessions, £20 family ticket (two plus two). All train rides, except with the steam models, will be included in the ticket price.

A full list of engines taking part in Railfest is available on the NRM website at www.nrm.org.uk

Short history of rail

1804: Trevithick's Penydarren engine hauls the first steam-powered train

1812: First commercially successful use of steam locomotive at Middleton, Leeds

1825: First steam-hauled public passenger train runs on Stockton and Darlington Railway

1829: Rainhill Trials, won by Stephenson's Rocket

1830: First inter-city express service opens between Liverpool and Manchester, using Rocket

1838: World's first capital city terminus opens at Euston Station London and Birmingham Railway

1839: George Hudson opens York's first railway station

1841: First railway 'package' tour operated by Thomas Cook

1852: London and Aberdeen joined by rail

1904: City of Truro breaks the 100mph speed barrier

1938: Mallard becomes the world's fastest steam locomotive (126mph)

1948: Britain's railways nationalised

1955: BR Modernisation Plan sounds death knell for steam

1960: British Rail manufactures its last steam locomotive, Evening Star

1963: Beeching Report published

1968: Oliver Cromwell hauls the last BR steam train

1976: A new diesel-powered High Speed Train is introduced into fleet service

1991: Electrification of the East Coast Mainline completed

1994: Britain's railways re-privatised

1994: Channel Tunnel opened

2002: Virgin Trains introduce the new Pendolino tilting train on the West Coast Main Line

Updated: 11:22 Thursday, February 19, 2004