Nicholas Wood: Rainhill, 1829
By 1825, he had gained sufficient reputation and expertise in the design and testing of locomotives that in 1825 he was able to publish his influential book A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads and Interior Communication, in which he analysed the various types of 'motive power' then in use: self-acting planes, fixed steam-engine planes, horses and steam locomotives. He was also invited to give evidence before committees of both houses of parliament on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill and then appointed as one of the three judges, along with John Rastrick and John Kennedy, at the subsequent Rainhill Trials of 1829.