The recent talk of trains brought back memories of my love and fascination of the big engines that pulled the trains. Thought someone else might like a few facts and memories about them. The first machine built to meet the modern day definition of a Locomotive was Stephenson's Rocket. It was built in 1829 in Great Britain. A railroad was built from Liverpool to Manchester and the local government was considering using horse-drawn trains, but decided to have a Locomotive contest with a prize of 500 pounds sterling to anyone with a steam engine that would out perform the horses. George Stephenson came with his Rocket, and easily won the contest. The Rocket weighted almost 5 tons, but would pull several times its weight at a blazing speed of 30 miles per hour. Stephenson became the first great railroad industrialist, and the railroad industry was off and running. And grow it did, just 25 or 30 years later, even the little new towns in Gibson County were connected by the rails and the people had a modern way to travel. a modern way to = travel.=20