COULD one of the great Victorian railway pioneers have died young because he was "burnt-out" by a 19th century version of executive stress?

That's one of the questions researchers hope to answer with the help of York's National Railway Museum (NRM), in a project started exactly 200 years after the birth of Robert Stephenson.

They hope the key to unravelling the last months of Stephenson's life will be a lock of his hair, held by the NRM.

Bio-archaeologists and forensic scientists from the University of Bradford will use state-of-the-art forensic equipment to discover details of his diet, health and environment, as well as chemical analysis of the hair.

Similar techniques have been employed in archaeological studies of mummies from ancient Egypt and South America, and were famously associated with the discovery of arsenic in the hair of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Robert, only son of another railway pioneer, George Stephenson, was born on October 16, 1803.

His achievements include building the revolutionary steam locomotive, Rocket, the construction of the first railway line into London, and designing the famous Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits to Anglesey.

Robert died, aged 55, on October 12, 1859. The lock of hair is believed to have been taken at the time of his death and has been on display at the NRM since 1982.

Helen Ashby, head of knowledge and collections, said: "We hope this new study will provide a much more detailed and intimate picture of the man behind the genius. Much like his hard-working contemporaries, Brunel and Locke, Stephenson died at a relatively early age and is known to have suffered from what we now call 'burn-out' or executive stress.

"Historical commentators also remark on his reliance on stimulants and narcotics to escape the pressures of his busy commercial and political life.

"If this project does reveal that this may be true, it would indicate that some aspects of our society have actually changed very little in the last 150 years - the price of fame and fortune could be just as high then as it sometimes is today."

Updated: 10:58 Thursday, October 16, 2003