GEORGE and Robert Stephenson’s iconic Liverpool & Manchester Railway 0-2-2 Rocket will make an historic return to one of the cities it was built to serve after an absence of more than 180 years.
The remains of the much-rebuilt 1829 loco, which famously won the Rainhill Trials and paved the way for steam locomotive development for the next 140 years, will be exhibited at Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) from September 22 until April 21 next year.
Not only will this see Rocket back in Manchester, but actually on the site of the Liverpool & Manchester’s Liverpool Road terminus that MOSI now occupies.
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MOSI director Sally MacDonald said: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this iconic symbol of the Industrial Revolution in the city where it sparked ‘railway mania’.”
Rocket will move to Manchester directly after its June 22-September 9 appearance at Newcastle’s Discovery Museum, as part of the Great Exhibition of the North, tickets for which are now on sale.
■ MOSI will undergo a change of identity from September, becoming the Science & Industry Museum, to align it with the Science Museum Group’s revamped identity policy that has also seen the National Railway Museum become simply the Railway Museum.
Read more News and Features in the June issue of The RM – on sale now!