The Rocket
Here I stand thinking back, of a generation pastand way back in ’29, the blueprint here was cast.The smell; the steel; the sweat; put not much in one man’s pocketbut the pride of the North, was beaming Stephenson’s Rocket.Though the Rocket was not the first, it had such innovationthe design was so far advanced, it was heard throughout the nation.The most famous example, of a train cried all its peersand it became a leader of all steam trains for the next one hundred and fifty years.It had a smoke stack chimney and a boiler in the middletwo big wooden wheels and driven from a griddle.The firebox was separate and the boiler with double skinand a water jacket between them to thrust the power in.The trials soon came around, near Liverpool a place they call Rainhilland when the Rocket thundered home, it won a five hundred bill.Now going back to ’25 in Stockton in the sun, a rail line was opened thereand to Darlington, it did run.Two locomotives there, pulled steel wagons just for funOne was named the “Experiment” the other “Number one”The Rocket! by Bernie Logue.