However, Hackworth's workshop facilities were still fairly rudimentary at this time and he was forced to contract-out much of the work on the Sans Pareil. Some parts, including - crucially - the cylinders, were manufactured by Stephenson.

Ironically, during the course of the trials a cylinder blew on Sans Pareil, leaving Stephenson's Rocket to win the competition and establish its place in history. Sabotage? It's only natural to consider the possibility and Stephenson himself was certainly worried enough by his rival's challenge to pen a series of derogatory letters about Sans Pareil to the secretary of the Liverpool-Manchester line before the trials.

There's no actual evidence of any wrongdoing - with the state of the art at that time, cylinders exploded with alarming regularity. However, the problem was traced to a fault in the casting of the joint between the cylinder and the steam pipe, that left left just one-sixteenth of an inch thickness of metal instead of what should have been seven-eighths of an inch.

Hackworth was incensed, writing to the Liverpool board, claiming that "...circumstances over which I could not have any control from my peculiar situation, compelled me to put that confidence in others which I found with sorrow was but too implicitly placed."

And the Stephensons were certainly capable of dirty tricks, as Hackworth was to find to his cost in 1830. Because his Shildon facilities were too small, he ordered a new engine for the Stockton-Darlington line from the Stephensons' Newcastle works.

The engine featured his own design breakthrough - twin, horizontal cylinders operating on crank axles. The Stephensons mockeedd the idea - then delayed completion of The Globe while they copied the drive for an engine of their own, which became The Planet.

Hackworth, however, had the last laugh. Although the Sans Pareil lost the competition - in fact, she was allowed to run even though her weight ruled her out of the competition proper -