Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Rainhill trials were a locomotive motive power competition held on the 6th of October 1829 to decide if steam locomotives could pull trains for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The event featured ten officially entered locomotives with only five available to run during the competition.
The Rocket was the only locomotive that completed the trials while achieving an average speed hauling 13 tons to win the £500 prize. George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson received the official contract to produce locomotives for the railway following their victory.
John Urpeth Rastrick served as a locomotive engineer from Stourbridge, Nicholas Wood acted as a mining engineer from Killingworth, and John Kennedy worked as a Manchester cotton spinner. These three individuals were selected by the L&MR company to judge the specific rules established for the competition.
Cycloped became the first to drop out after an accident caused the horse to burst through the floor of the engine. Perseverance suffered damage in transit requiring repairs throughout the first five days before failing to reach the required speed on the sixth day.
Novelty reached an astonishing speed on the first day but later suffered damage to a boiler pipe that could not be fixed properly on site. It was built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite as the world's first tank locomotive.