He was a artificer of numbers of early steam locomotives, including the Sans Pareil, which took part in the Rainhill Trials in 1829 Although Hackworth's locomotive was heavily, it was allowed to participate, however failed whilst the cylinder cracked. A engine was nonetheless later utilized on a Liverpool & Manchester Railway & could however exist as seen around action at the Timothy Hackworth Museum.

His project inside 1827 for the Royal George used the steam blastpipe in a chimney to draw the fire, & he is unremarkably acknowledged when the discoverer of this conception. Even so, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney claimed prior art, having utilized the similar steam blast when early when 1822. A steam blast was copied by Stephenson for his engine, a '' Rocket''. Based on data from an additional source ('last, 1871), Stephenson utilized a steam blast already prior to 1815. It got been most common practice to exhaust a steam into a chimney to minimise noise. Recent letters acquired per National Railway Museum would appear to confirm Hackworth when a artificer. It can be he was to 1st to use a steam to draw a fire.

He as well built, at Shildon around 1836, a number 1 locomotive engine to process inside Russia for the St Petersburg railway and around 1837 a Samson for the Albion Mines Railway within Nova Scotia, one of the foremost engines to dog within Canada.

One of his 1833 apprentices, Daniel Adamson, later farther developed his boiler designs becoming the successful manufacturer (& influential in the origin of the Manchester Ship Canal).