George Stephenson was appointed as engine-wright at Killingworth Colliery in 1812 and immediately improved the haulage of the coal from the mine using fixed engines.

[2] It was named after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, who, after a speedy march, arrived in time to help defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Stephenson carefully measured its performance and realised that overall it saved little money compared with the use of horses, even though the price of corn was at an all-time high because of the wars.

It moves at the rate of three miles an hour, dragging after it 14 waggons, loaded each with about two tons of coals; so that in this case the expense of 14 horses is saved by the substitution of the steam-engine".

Together with the head viewer, Nicholas Wood, Stephenson conducted in 1818 a careful series of measurements on friction and the effects of inclines, or declivities as they were generally called, using a dynamometer which they developed.

For the next fifteen years the locomotive stood on a plinth above the roadway at the Newcastle end of the High Level Bridge.