200th anniversary of Liverpool and Manchester Railway plans on track

A meeting was held at St Helens Town Hall with the newly appointed chairman of the Regional LMR200 board, Professor Paul Salveson.

This followed a recent council motion on the plans to acknowledge the milestone.

With the 50th, 100th, and 150th anniversaries celebrated as part of a national events programme, councillors have said it is vital that the same is done in 2030 to create a "lasting legacy of our proud history".

The meeting was an important introduction to those wishing to work on the LMR200 events from across the borough.

First opening in 1830, the Liverpool to Manchester was the first inter-city railway in the world. The steam-powered trains transported freight and passengers at a time when horse-drawn vehicles were the country's main form of transport.

The railway opening followed the Rainhill trials in 1829, which tested which trains would be used on the nearly-completed railway.

A 'Rocket' train procession at Rainhill in 1979 (Image: Rainhill Railway and Heritage Society)

George Stephenson's 'Rocket' was the only locomotive to complete the trials and became the first vehicle to be used on the first modern passenger railway.

An exhibition commemorating this history has been housed inside a converted rail carriage on the grounds of Rainhill Library in recent years, with an ongoing project to give this a more prominent place in the village.

In Newton-le-Willows, George Stephenson also designed the huge Sankey Viaduct which became the first major railway viaduct in the world, while the Vulcan Works produced thousands of steam locomotives for railways across the world.

Dr Barrie Pennington presented Professor Salveson with a recently commissioned painting of Rocket, and council cabinet member for strategic transport Cllr Gomez-Aspron gave the local authority and the Rainhill groups represented at the meeting an extensive archive of recently unpublished slides from the 1980 celebrations.

'We want to celebrate our unique railway history'

Cllr Gomez-Aspron said: “I was kindly given an extensive set of slides from the 1980 celebrations by the family of Eddie Bellass, a local legend in the railway arena and one of the organisers of the 1980 events. The family have kindly agreed to loan their collection to the council archive for public access and so it made perfect sense to get them scanned and give Rainhill Heritage Society a copy. It was great to meet Rhian, Graham and Dave.

"We’ve made a clear statement of intent that we want to be part of the LMR200 celebrations to celebration the unique railway history of Rainhill, Newton-le-Willows and the wider borough in an appropriate and ambitious way. We discussed many potential projects including smaller community group and school engagements, bring Earlestown and Rainhill stations back into use to display items of historic importance, potential museum offers and up to big ambitious cavalcade projects.

"We can lead from the ongoing celebrations at Stockton and Darlington in 2025, and hope that we can pull together committed groups to deliver an extravaganza here in partnership with Manchester and Liverpool.”