the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the trials the year before. A replica of Novelty was built for the event, which was also attended by replicas of Sans Pareil and Rocket (plus coach). On the first day of the Trials, disaster struck. The Rocket, to the dismay of the many visitors, failed to run. It came off the rails as it was exiting the Bold Colliery sidings and buckled the rim of one of its large drive wheels. That evening, senior staff from a St Helens road transport company met a former colleague of the builder of the Rocket replica, at a Liverpool Hotel and agreed that, in the early hours of the following morning, they would urgently manufacture some steel parts (wedges) in their nearby workshops, to fix the bent drive wheel before the second day's parade commenced. At the same time, BR agreed to put a team of staff into the sidings at Bold to "straighten" the bent rails. Both activities were achieved on time and the Rocket ran successfully on the following two days of the Trials, though Sans Pareil was pushed by Lion and Novelty was on a wagon hauled by LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 5000. As the line was then not electrified, the Advanced Passenger Train was also pushed, but by the latest diesel, Class 56, 077. The 'Grand Cavalcade' on each of the three days featured up to 40 steam and diesel locomotives and other examples of modern traction, including: Lion, at the time of Rocket 150 the oldest operable steam locomotive in existence(The British-built US locomotive John Bull, seven years older, was steamed again in 1981) Flying Scotsman No. 4472 LMS 4-6-0 Jubilee class No. 5690 Leander Sir Nigel Gresley No. 4498 Green Arrow No. 4771 GWR 0-6-0 No. 3205 LMS Class 4 MT 2-6-0 No. 43106 BR 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive to be built by British Railways LMS 4-6-2 Princess Elizabeth No. 6201 Two Class 86 locomotives 86214 Sans Pareil and 86235 Novelty were painted in a variation of the Large Logo Rail Blue livery where the BR logo was replaced by Rocket 150 motif on a yellow background. 2002 Restaging In a recent (2002) restaging of the Rainhill trials using replica engines, neither Sans Pareil (11 out of 20 runs) nor Novelty (10 out of 20 runs) completed the course. In calculating the speeds