5. The engine with water must not weigh more than six tons, but an engine of less weight would be preferred although drawing a proportionately less load behind it; if of only four and one-half tons it might be put on four wheels.
6. A mercurial gauge must be affixed to the machine, showing the steam pressure about forty-five pounds to the square inch.
7. The engine must be delivered, complete and ready for trial, at the Liverpool end of the railway, not later than October 1, 1829.
8. The price of the engine must not exceed £550.
What strikes one as most peculiar in this set of requirements and specifications is the first clause—that of the engine consuming its own smoke; for even at the present time this is considered a difficult problem. But this was not so considered by the inventors of that time, their great stumbling-block being the high speed required. Ten miles an hour struck most of them as absurd and out of the question.
One eminent person, who was to become later one of England's leading engineers, stated publicly that "if it proved to be possible to make a locomotive go ten miles an hour, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for his breakfast." It is not recorded whether or not this terrible threat was carried out.
But there was more than one engineer and engine-builder who took a more sanguine view of the prize offer. The firm of Braithwait & Ericsson signified its intention of competing, with a locomotive that they named the Novelty. Another firm entered the contest with an engine called the Sans-pareil; still another firm entered the Perseverance; and George Stephenson was on hand with the now-famous Rocket.
In the series of trials that followed, the Sans-pareil and the Perseverance were so clearly outclassed by the other two competing locomotives that they need not be considered here; but the Novelty and the Rocket were close competitors. The Novelty, indeed, made such a good showing, and afterwards proved to be such a good locomotive, that although it lost the contest, many competent judges have since regarded it as equal to the Rocket, if not superior, in principle. Be that as it may, later experiments proved conclusively that the cause of failure on the final day of the prize contest was due to defects in workmanship rather than to defective principle of construction.
The Novelty has been described as having the appearance of "a milk-can set in the rear end of a wagon, with a little smokestack in front looking like a high dashboard." It carried its supply of fuel and water in the "wagon-box" part of the engine frame, in front of the boiler, so that it required no tender. On its first trial, running without any load, it reached a speed of twenty-four miles an hour—a speed more than double the "stewed engine-wheel" limit. But at each subsequent trial, although it hauled loads for short distances, some part of its machinery became disabled, so that it was necessarily regarded as inferior to its more stable rival, the Rocket.
