Mr Jorrox

Hare brained schemes are the stock in trade of bureaucrats and the politicians who serve them.

Baltics.

Not so: energy goes out through the exhaust port, is absorbed by the crankshaft, pumps, generator, fans &c and by the traction motors.

I have the 'what if' running in my head more or less constantly and my principal 'what if' is that nationalisation did not happen so all sorts of things are imaginable. One of the things that occurred to me was Southern luggage vans built to match Pullman cars. Mine are painted overall burnt umber and lettered 'SOUTHERN', as the Pullman company had no reason to own them. I also thought of MLVs, with six wheeled motor bogies, for the Newhaven boat trains.

I am currently sorting through my late father's possessions and have a nearly complete and almost entirely unopened set of these partworks to dispose of (issues 17 and 40, of 1 - 125, are missing and I've run out of places where my father might have stashed them away). Other than that, all parts appear to be present except for the plastic boiler assembly but I've no way of knowing if anything else is missing - the plastic tender body is still extant. Is there any likelihood that anyone may want it?

Nice job and interesting to see what the kit looks like when finished. I'm going through my recently deceased father's possessions and have come across a stack of partworks for this locomotive, still in their unopened cellophane bags. I haven't come across the plastic boiler and tender yet but the white metal footplate is there. Copies are selling on eBay for various prices between £7.95 and £19.95, depending on the part attached to the magazine, which is quite a surprise. He also has a part completed Hachette Bismark, the hull of which must be about three and a half feet long.

Bulleid would not have been appointed to manage such a place and he could not have stayed at the Southern for very much longer than a year or two after 1950, at the very latest. His seriously flawed 'brainchild' cost BR nearly £180,000/0/0, and that was for: one running, albeit with very serious problems and nowhere nearly ready for service, locomotive; one very nearly complete and could have been turned out within a few days but thank providence not a shilling was wasted on coal for it locomotive; one well on the way to completion but, given the time it took the Southern to build a locomotive, not before Christmas 1949, nor for some months after, locomotive; two 'set of frames with wheels, boiler plus firebox plus smokebox kit for a locomotive' locomotives. Who can doubt that had he remained as CME of the Southern all five of the overweight, money burning, Kitson-Meyer type, M7 Waterloo to Clapham empty stock shunter replacements would have been completed and cost a great deal more than the bill paid by the Great British Tax Payer. If I recall correctly Bulleid advised the Board of Directors that one prototype and five production locomotives could be built for £27,000/0/0 for the prototype and £5,000/0/0 for each production locomotive. I think Bulleid would have been on his way by 1952, without a reference, and nationalisation, and Robin Riddles, saved his reputation and his skin. For the avoidance of doubt, I like the Leader, and all of Bulleid's output, even the Tavern sets as built, I just don't think he had a future in England as the CME of a profitable enterprise.