Around Rainhill

 

Rainhill in Lancashire was the site of the 1829 Rainhill Locomotive Trials held on the new Liverpool and Manchester Railway and won by the Rocket designed by George Stephenson.

Rainhill also boasts the Skew Bridge, it is the world's first bridge to cross over a railway at an angle and the Liverpool Manchester Railway the world's first inter-city passenger railway service that runs through the village

 

 TRIG Point.

A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig.  It is a fixed surveying station typically a concrete pillar and erected by the Ordnance Survey.  Usually two or three can be seen on a clear day from any one of them, they are no longer needed and so are now obsolete. 

 

Before this mobile phone mast was erected some of the local residents objected for various reasons.  However as you can see it was erected and disguised as a tree, looking completely out of place. 

 

 

Into The Village 

The Rocket pub on Warrington Road was originally called the Black Horse and was affectionally known as Maggie Sharkey's 

 

Whiston Incline.

Originally, it was thought that steam locomotives would not be able to climb the incline without the assistance of rope haulage and work began on the construction of a line-side winding engine. The success of the Rocket at the Rainhill Trials eliminated the need for this winding engine and another that was planned at Sutton, so they were never completed.

This is at the top of the Whiston Incline by Stoney Lane bridge. The cutting here was widened to accommodate sidings where assisting locomotives could be detached from ascending trains and added to those descending the incline.

You may find this article interesting: Along the Whiston Incline

  

 

 Rainhill Skew Bridge, a Grade II listed structure, is the most acute of 15 such bridges on the line, built at an angle of 34 degrees to the railway. Work on the construction began towards the edge of 1828. A full-size model was set up in an adjacent field and stone blocks, some weighing over two tons, were cut, dressed and numbered in advance, each being individually shaped to fit its exact position.

The bridge was then constructed and the Warrington to Prescot Turnpike (now the A57), raised by inclined embankments, to pass over it. An inscription carved below the parapet on the eastern side, records the date of completion – June 1829.

 

 

 

The inscription in the bridge naming the Chairman of the railway and the resident engineer.  

 

 

Rainhill station was opened in 1830 as part of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and is one of the oldest passenger railway stations in the world.  The station was originally called Kendrick's Cross or Kendrick's Cross Gate, it was later changed to Rainhill.

The grade II listed station buildings were constructed around 1860-68 by the London & North Western Railway

This Photograph was taken off the Skew Bridge that was built to take the Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester turnpike across the railway.

 

This is a public footbridge taking pedestrians over the railway line, outside of the station. 

 

The site of the actual trials taken off the footbridge.

 

  

• < Prev
• Next >