The young Stephenson taught himself to read and write and began to make a name for himself with his expertise working on and improving of the primitive steam
engines employed in the local mines. From these lowly beginnings he would go on to be chief engineer to the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the first publicly financed passenger railway
in the world.
He was destined to be involved with many other great engineering feats but is probably best remembered for the locomotive "The Rocket"
designed with his son Robert which won the Rain Hill trials in 1829.
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