Unveiling of the Replica of the Rocket Locomotive

Abstract

ON April 11, the Minister of Transport, Mr. L. Hore-Belisha, unveiled the new replica of the Rocket which has just been added to the locomotive collection in the Science Museum, South Kensington. Mr. Hore-Belisha pointed out that the importance of the Rocket in the history of the locomotive lies in the fact that the chief features of its design had been followed down to the present day. He then referred to the precautions for the public safety which have been taken from the earliest days of the railway, so that the numerous regulations which govern the movement of traffic on rails are not regarded as restrictions, but as guarantees of efficiency and security. Had similar foresight been shown in connexion with the motor-car, the nation might have been spared the material, economic and personal loss which the weekly casualty lists reveal. We are now trying to make good rapidly the omissions of forty years. The measures we are now forced to institute, had they proceeded pari passu with the growth in the numbers of mechanically propelled vehicles on the road, would have been regarded as natural. Methods of road traffic control are being borrowed from the railway. The Rocket demonstrated its capacity in a competition on the railway. To-day, it would probably have been sent to the testing station at Vitry, in France, to enable its operation to be scientifically studied. In the country which produced the Rocket, there is no similar testing station for locomotives, and Mr. Hore-Belisha expressed the hope that the omission would be repaired.