Set in 1829, a new children’s book called Wrong Tracks centres on Edward Entwistle, a Lancashire lad from Tyldesley, Wigan, whose claim to fame is driving the famous Rocket steam engine on the railway’s opening day.

Author Susan Brownrigg grew up in Wigan and now lives in Skelmersdale. She loves writing historical stories for children aged 8 and over, especially those focusing on Northern people, places and events. Her other books include the Gracie Fairshaw mystery series set in 1930s Blackpool.

“I used to pass the boundary signs for Rainhill that celebrated being the home of the locomotive trials and thought it might make a good setting for a new mystery,” she says. “The more I researched early railway history, the more convinced I became. I loved that there were these passionate inventors determined to bring this new technology to the masses, that the railways opened up the world for ordinary folk. Then, on the other hand, you had the canal companies and rich landowners in opposition. When surveyors tried to plot the direction of the new line, they were shot at. Others were worried that the new steam trains weren’t safe – they went at incredible speeds – and people thought they would terrify cows and horses in fields, do strange things to your anatomy if you travelled on them, or blow up.”

The Rainhill trials sought to find the best new steam locomotive for the new Liverpool and Manchester Railway. In Brownrigg’s book, Edward and his loco-mad friend Prudence help father and son inventors George and Robert Stephenson in their efforts to win the trials.

Brownrigg says: “Edward [the first driver of a passenger train on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway] made for a fascinating main character as the gaps in history and different accounts of his life suggested to me that he’d make a fantastic, and slightly unreliable, narrator. I imagined how exciting it would be for a boy of 14 or 15 to travel to Newcastle and Liverpool having lived in a small village, to visit a locomotive manufacturer and then to be caught up in all the drama of the trials themselves.

“I learned that there were lots of mishaps and accidents, spies and sabotage before and during the trials which was perfect material for a whodunnit. I hope children will enjoy trying to work out who the villain is alongside my heroes Edward and Prudence.”

Brownrigg travelled across the North to research her book thanks to a grant from The Society of Authors.

“It was brilliant following in Edward’s footsteps. I visited Dial Cottage where George and Robert Stephenson lived as well as Shildon, the County Durham home of Timothy Hackworth, inventor of Sans Pareil, another Rainhill trials engine. Shildon is now home to the railway museum Locomotion, and there I was able to see Sans Pareil and the Rocket side by side, as well as replicas. I even got the chance to step onto the replica Rocket’s footplate and go for a ride. I felt like I’d gone back in time.”

Brownrigg also enjoyed footplate experiences at two heritage railways to better understand how steam engines work and to use her sensory experiences to bring the past to life. “It was brilliant feeling the heat from the firebox, smelling the hot steam, feeling the weight of the fireman’s shovel, and they even let me blow the whistle.”

This year is Railway 200, the 200^th anniversary of modern railways. The North East has big plans to mark the bicentenary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington railway, another Stephenson success, while anniversaries of the Rainhill trials and the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line will be celebrated across the North West in 2030.

“I am proud to share the North’s important railway heritage with a new generation,” says Brownrigg.

 

Main image: Susan Brownrigg with Rocket replica at Shildon. Copyright Susan Brownrigg.

Wrong Tracks is for ages 9+ and is published by UCLan Publishing at £7.99. You can find out more about Susan Brownrigg and her books at susanbrownrigg.com