Bulleid's Leader: could it have even been successful?

[Sylvian Tennant]

This is asking mainly for a future possible modelling project. 

 

Understandably the Leader project was a bridge too far in terms of Bulleid's radical development projects - it weighed too much, cost too much, the asymmetric drive kept on breaking the piston rods and it practically boiled firemen alive. It's fair to say, it wasn't too successful.

 

However, I was looking through an old magazine of mine and found some sketches from John G Click who worked with Bulleid whilst he was at the Southern Railway one of which showed a locomotive with top half resembling the air smoothed BoB & WC classes and the chassis taken from the Leader. 

 

This got me thinking about the whole "What If" ideas. 

 

Could there have been any prospect of the Leader or design aspects of the Leader being successfully implemented at all?

[LMS2968]

Leader was a combination of some very innovative - even futuristic - ideas, and its main problem was the inclusion of so many of these In a single locomotive. Given suitable development, some of these might have been resolved, but others probably not, but as you're asking about the whole loco, the answer is that it could not be made to work in total. Individual ideas and components might have worked well, but those that were beyond hope simply overwhelmed them; they would go wrong and Leader as a whole was then brought to a stop.

 

Leader did run some trials, and some of these were successful and gave a hint of what might have been achieved. But the time and money to develop the concept just weren't there. In many ways, it really was a shame because this was areal attempt to move away from the Stephenson concept of the steam locomotive, but, like all such attempts, was never able find success..

[Edge]

I adore the 'Leader'. It was the only genuine attempt to construct a truly modern steam locomotive that abandoned the Stephenson-pattern and sought to incorporate the best of diesel and electric practice with the well-known technology of steam, in particular, the modular bogies / power units that are such a strength of modern D&E traction could well have revolutionised steam locomotives.

 

Ultimately, I do not think that this would have 'saved' the steam engine or extended its working life. The steam engine was ended by a political decision and not a technical one - even if there had been a fleet of Leaders running I cannot see steam enduring beyond its historical date of 1968.

 

The designs that Bulleid suggested were fundamentally flawed in a number of respects, but we will never know if they could have been ironed out with 36002 which was stopped less than a week from its completion and incorporated almost all of the improvements from 36001. Ultimately, this would still have produced a locomotive which was phenomenally overweight and heavy on both coal and water.

[decauville1126]

Kevin Robertson has authored a couple of very good books on the Leader which are easily available and good reading. They also show the various styles that were being considered, one of which looks like a Garrat'ish Light Pacific.

 

Much has been written about Bulleid and he was without doubt visionary. Leader morphed into CC1 - aka the Turf Burner - in Ireland for CIE, but once again showed that politics can suppress innovation and development. 

[hmrspaul]

Ultimately, I do not think that this would have 'saved' the steam engine or extended its working life. The steam engine was ended by a political decision and not a technical one - even if there had been a fleet of Leaders running I cannot see steam enduring beyond its historical date of 1968.

 

 

 

I totally agree. So much rubbish is written about how Steam could have gone on and been developed. NOT in Britain it couldn't. The mystery is why after the 1956 clean air act BR didn't put a halt to all new build steam locos, presumably just too socially difficult with no alternative supply of new motive power available. In 1956 it was calculated BR produced 10% of all the air pollution in Britain. So many correspondents don't seem to have lived through a smog. Now I'm too young to remember the great smog of c1952 which meant the act was introduced but even in 1961 we had to walk the 5 miles home from school because all public transport stopped and you couldn't see a light shining on the top of a light pole. And that wasn't in some great industrial monopolis but suburban Sunbury to Staines.

 

No the Steam loco was doomed in our little overcrowded island when Bulleid was attempting to improve it.

 

Paul

Edited June 27, 2017 by hmrspaul

[OFFTHE RAILS]

As an engineering project the "Leader" development was out of control. Nowadays risk assessments would be made at each stage regarding the design especially the novel features. Also a major requirement change became necessary. The initial design was for an oil fired locomotive as the government was encouraging and financing oil firing on the railways. When the oil firing push was halted the Leader had to become a coal fired loco. The firebox design was changed and the grate area (and thus potential power) was reduced. The off centre boiler (to allow crew movement within the loco)  obviously produced a potentially unstable loco unless (as was temporarily done) many many tons  of ballast metal was dumped on the corridor floor. The resulting loco was grossly over design weight with axle weight averaging around 25 tons!.

It was a heroic attempt to keep steam competitive with diesel on the railways but it was a design and financial disaster from the start..

[bike2steam]

I just think Bulleid had a weird sense of humour, really - a branch line steam loco with an offset boiler needing a counterweight to balance it out, a fireman roasting to death or converting to oil which a bankrupt nation couldn't afford. 

[Edwin_m]

I don't think it's fair to say that the abandonment of steam was primarily a political decision, although the decision to do so quickly may have been.  I can think of several reasons why steam probably wasn't sustainable much beyond the 1960s so the question is whether Leader or a development thereof have changed any of these enough to be competitive with diesel traction on unelectrified lines.  I don't know enough about it to answer these myself so throw it open to the wisdom of the forum...

 

- Servicing steam locos was a messy job which few people wanted to do (at least for the wages on offer in a time of low unemployment).

- Steam had to be got up, starting several hours before the loco was needed. 

- Steam locos would always require two footplate crew, but single manning of multiple unit cabs was already a reality and single manning of diesel loco cabs wasn't far in the future. 

- Steam locos couldn't be run in multiple (only in tandem requiring extra crews). 

- Similarly, nobody ever produced a true steam multiple unit or even a viable underfloor steam engine.

- Pollution, as already mentioned. 

- Inability to provide electric hotel power (though I imagine the Mk2 stock could have had steam air conditioning like in America, but that would have created problems on electric lines)

- Fuel consumption?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

In the 'plenty of power with all of low axleload, good flexibility and operable in either direction' stakes; it is the Beyer Garratt design that stands out if an articulated type is to be used. Beyer, Peacock & Co had a line of proven designs for the 3'6" lines: take a small one, fit it with standard gauge trucks, and within months (consider the speed with which the U1 was turned out) the Southern could have had a machine capable of dragging their entire caravan of small antiquated tankies to the scrapper in about twenty trainloads!

[LMS2968]

I don't think it's fair to say that the abandonment of steam was primarily a political decision, although the decision to do so quickly may have been.  I can think of several reasons why steam probably wasn't sustainable much beyond the 1960s so the question is whether Leader or a development thereof have changed any of these enough to be competitive with diesel traction on unelectrified lines.  I don't know enough about it to answer these myself so throw it open to the wisdom of the forum...

 

- Servicing steam locos was a messy job which few people wanted to do (at least for the wages on offer in a time of low unemployment).

While true, mechanical handling systems and self-cleaning smokeboxes, rocking grates and hopper ashpans were available and fitted to some engines of some classes. Universal fitment would have solved many of the recruitment / work practice problems at far less cost than dieselisation. Black Fives, for example, had engines so fitted but most of the class was not, and the same equipment would have fitted the 8Fs and Jubilees. This would also have allowed reduced servicing time and increased availability.

- Steam had to be got up, starting several hours before the loco was needed.

So too did many diesels require time to start - some were hot start only. And you're looking at a steam loco being fired up from cold, but most would be in steam, or at least hot, for a week or more. Start up was not the problem imagined.

- Steam locos would always require two footplate crew, but single manning of multiple unit cabs was already a reality and single manning of diesel loco cabs wasn't far in the future.

True, but it took time for trade unions to agree to the single manning of diesels anyway. 

- Steam locos couldn't be run in multiple (only in tandem requiring extra crews).

True.

- Similarly, nobody ever produced a true steam multiple unit or even a viable underfloor steam engine.

There were though rail motors, some more successful than others. The GWR 14xx's could and did run four coach sets, two coaches at each end.

- Pollution, as already mentioned.

Indeed, but much of British industry, and there was then a lot of it, was coal fired. Steam locos did not though concentrate their pollution in cities.

- Inability to provide electric hotel power (though I imagine the Mk2 stock could have had steam air conditioning like in America, but that would have created problems on electric lines)

This was hardly a problem in the 1960s. Few expected air conditioning; I recall buses with no form of heating and an open platform at the rear. We were tough in those days!

- Fuel consumption?

Compared with what? Comparatively cheap, home-grown coal or expensive imported oil? Although steam did consume more fuel for a given work output, it was a long time before the differences in the fuel costs per unit showed diesels to advantage.

 

There were advantages to diesel in the form of greater availability, but the availability of steam could have been much improved as outlined above. But it would always be labour intensive: mechanical stokers were tried but were unsuccessful in Britain. Dieselisation was the option chosen, but others using steam were available, but not pursued.

[Steamport Southport]

Steam could easily have lasted for many years more. Gradual replacement towards a mainly electric railway was the way to go. Mass dieselisation was probably one of the biggest wastes of money in the history of the country, and according to some reports recently, not the best option for our health.

 

Don't forget many of those diesels were in the scrapyard next to the locomotives they were supposed to be replacing. They should have spent a bit more time on the development of the diesel prototypes whilst keeping some of the more modern and efficient steam locomotives until they needed major overhauls. Scrapping virtually brand new locomotives that had twenty or thirty years of life in them wasn't economic sense. The successful diesel shunters and multiple units would have seen most of the more elderly steam locomotives go anyway.

 

 

Importing and refining oil to power diesels to pull coal trains to power electric trains? Seems a strange way to do things in hindsight.

 

 

I'm not looking at it from a nostalgic point of view, more that I can't believe they wasted so much money on what was ultimately a vanity project to make the country seem modern.

 

 

Jason

[TravisM]

Back in the early 80's, the "Leader" idea raised it's head again but this time in the US and went under the ACE project.  From what I remember of it, it had two sections, articulated in the middle with a cab at either end, the boiler in one section and in the other, carried the pulverised coal in modular containers along with the water which went through a condenser to recirculate it. Everything was computer controlled, all wheels on roller bearings but I can't remember if it either had valve gear or drove a turbine, much like a modern day power station.

 

In the article I read that the guy behind the project said the he'd been inspired by the Bullied "Leader" idea and felt that he could seriously improve on the concept using modern technology, but the whole idea never got off the drawing board as railroads were very lukewarm to the idea, not only because it was seen by many as a backward step but millions would have had to be spent on infrastructure.  The great thing about even the simplest servicing of a modern loco, even by the 60's was drive a tanker up to a hard stand or nearby road and fill it up.

 

Julian Sprott

[The Stationmaster]

This is asking mainly for a future possible modelling project. 

 

Understandably the Leader project was a bridge too far in terms of Bulleid's radical development projects - it weighed too much, cost too much, the asymmetric drive kept on breaking the piston rods and it practically boiled firemen alive. It's fair to say, it wasn't too successful.

 

However, I was looking through an old magazine of mine and found some sketches from John G Click who worked with Bulleid whilst he was at the Southern Railway one of which showed a locomotive with top half resembling the air smoothed BoB & WC classes and the chassis taken from the Leader. 

 

This got me thinking about the whole "What If" ideas. 

 

Could there have been any prospect of the Leader or design aspects of the Leader being successfully implemented at all?

 

I met John Click (I think it must have been the same chap) in 1984 and he had been a Technical Assistant to Bulleid - fascinating chap to talk to and one of his more interesting comments was Bulleid's frequent frustration with the quality of components and materials he needed to make sure what he intended would do exactly what he intended.  One example of this was the search - in conjunction with a well known manufacturer - for chains that wouldn't stretch as much as was usual with the type that had been adopted by Bulleid for use in valve gear, seemingly Bulleid was never entirely satisfied with the quality of chain he could.

 

There were seemingly some frustrations during the Leader development and trials because various materials did not live up to the supplier's promises or what Bulleid wanted of it.  So in some respects one might be able to say that Bulleid was maybe hamstrung by materials science not being as advanced as his ideas and designs would want.  But equally as a coal fired design (or even with oil firing) the Leader was hardly likely ever to become a success and being rather blunt about it the design doesn't really strike me as a logical late 1940s replacement for a superannuated Pre-Group 0-4-4T.

[rockershovel]

Surely the REAL point about the end of steam, was that other countries which had studied the problem, had opted for electrification as long ago as the 1930s?

[coachmann]

The talk about working on steam locos as being dirty makes me chuckle. There were no really good jobs for the unskilled in my day.

 

I was forced to leave art school to bring a wage in, so I know what it was like to enter the unskilled labour market.  The railway wasn't the dirtiest job, but it was the 24 hour shift-work that worked against it especially with young men.  As for Bulleid, his sort were a pain to the workforce and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to work under him.

Edited June 27, 2017 by coachmann

[Steamport Southport]

Surely the REAL point about the end of steam, was that other countries which had studied the problem, had opted for electrification as long ago as the 1930s?

 

1930s? They were latecomers. 

 

We had a few hundred miles of electrified railway lines by that point, not including trams. Those countries also had steam well after we had got rid of it. Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan, etc.

 

 

That's kind of my point though. We should of phrased out steam, but largely bypassed dieselisation. Apart from a few tried and tested designs used for lines that wasn't suitable for electrification. Did we really need dozens of designs of diesels when they had been advocating standardisation for steam locomotives?

 

 

Then again, many model railways would be very boring if that had happened.

 

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

As for the original question. I reckon that if war hadn't happened and the will was there, then I think that eventually they would have made a success of it. 

 

 

 

Jason

[bike2steam]

I met John Click (I think it must have been the same chap) in 1984 and he had been a Technical Assistant to Bulleid - fascinating chap to talk to and one of his more interesting comments was Bulleid's frequent frustration with the quality of components and materials he needed to make sure what he intended would do exactly what he intended.  One example of this was the search - in conjunction with a well known manufacturer - for chains that wouldn't stretch as much as was usual with the type that had been adopted by Bulleid for use in valve gear, seemingly Bulleid was never entirely satisfied with the quality of chain he could.

 

There were seemingly some frustrations during the Leader development and trials because various materials did not live up to the supplier's promises or what Bulleid wanted of it.  So in some respects one might be able to say that Bulleid was maybe hamstrung by materials science not being as advanced as his ideas and designs would want.  But equally as a coal fired design (or even with oil firing) the Leader was hardly likely ever to become a success and being rather blunt about it the design doesn't really strike me as a logical late 1940s replacement for a superannuated Pre-Group 0-4-4T.

That's strange, while I was involved with Swanage Railway I came into contact with a certain Ron Pocklington, who had also worked with Mr Bulleid for while, and had said the same things. I believe, Ron went on, after working with Mr B, to help out at Rugby testing station.

[Horsetan]

I met John Click (I think it must have been the same chap) in 1984 and he had been a Technical Assistant to Bulleid - fascinating chap to talk to and one of his more interesting comments was Bulleid's frequent frustration with the quality of components and materials he needed to make sure what he intended would do exactly what he intended.  One example of this was the search - in conjunction with a well known manufacturer - for chains that wouldn't stretch as much as was usual with the type that had been adopted by Bulleid for use in valve gear, seemingly Bulleid was never entirely satisfied with the quality of chain he could.

 

There were seemingly some frustrations during the Leader development and trials because various materials did not live up to the supplier's promises or what Bulleid wanted of it.  So in some respects one might be able to say that Bulleid was maybe hamstrung by materials science not being as advanced as his ideas and designs would want. ....

This sounds like the assistance he had from Ricardo Engineering and the correspondence that he had with Sir Harry Ricardo on the subject of Morse chain. There seems to be a definite sense that even Sir Harry got a touch irritated by Bulleid's demands, which did not appear possible to fulfill given the state of technology at that time. That might be another way of saying that he was some way ahead of his time.

 

That said, his ideas could be made to work, and he demonstrated this in Ireland later on with CC1, his Turf Burner, which seemed to work relatively well given its one-off status. The impression I get was that it worked rather better than Leader. CIE, of course, saw much more promise in wholesale dieselisation but they still allowed Bulleid to go as far as he could.

 

The state of materials science has always frustrated engineers. It was the same years later when the Wankel rotary engine went into mass-produced cars - tip seals made from carbon were the only realistic choice at the time, but it wasn't foreseen that frequent short-distance travel would destroy these. By 1972, Ferrotic had more or less solved the tip seal problem but it was a bit too late by then, and only Mazda developed the rotary for the mass market.

[Nearholmer]

In answer to the OP: No.

 

I say that because the real answer was electrification and dieselisation, for which the SR had well-laid plans, which eventually came to fruition, donkeys years late because of capital starvation in the early years of BR.

 

A desperate need for stop-gap motive power did arise, once it became evident that the money for 'the real plan' wouldn't be forthcoming anytime soon, but the Leader was a Chocolate Teapot of an answer to that need. A better answer was a load of very capable modern, but not radical, tank engines, starting with the Fairburn tanks built at Brighton, and moving on to the BR Standard version of the same thing.

 

One thing that slightly mystifies me is why the DEMUs took so long to get from concept to actuality. The SR had them clearly in mind, and they were technically very much feasible in the late 1940s. A fleet of them built ten years earlier than the actually were could have seen-off a lot of old crocks from branch and secondary line service very cost-effectively, without the intermediate step of modern steam. Maybe it was another of the things that got lost down the back of the sofa while matters were dealt with on a national scale.

 

Pushing steam "to the ultimate" at this time was what the Americans call "polishing a t*rd".

 

And, anyone who thinks I might be a Bulleid Basher should note that my son somehow got named Oliver. My view is that the man was a kind-of genius, but not under effective steerage by the Board above him.

 

Kevin

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Zomboid]

The writing was on the wall for steam whilst Maunsell was still running things on the Southern. Leader was an admirable example of innovation, and some of the ideas might have had legs if they'd come along 10-20 years earlier, but by the 40s main line diesels were already old hat, and the Southern was clearly going to electrify all their main lines given time.

[New Haven Neil]

Going back to the OP, it wasn't piston rods that broke, but the lugs on the sleeve valves.  Important point, as the Turf Burner reverted to piston valves which solved that particular problem.

 

Sleeve valves were also used in IC engines, the great 'LBSC' (Curly Lawrence, model engineer) went to work on them but even he couldn't get them to work really well.  The Rolls-Royce Sabre aircraft engine used them I think, which were notoriously fickle, if very powerful.

 

At the end of the day it was never really going to work well, the boiler in particular was just too compromised for the crew to operate it safely - apparently it couldn't half steam though, but the leaky valves wasted it all.

 

I still love it..........

[EddieB]

Even had we persisted with steam design and development, I think Leader would still have been a dry twig.  As has been said already  (LMS2968), it was too many experiments brought together to have had any chance of success.  At best, it would probably have used up much resource, over many years, trying to live up to its designer's original expectation.  Who knows (actually someone might!) whether Bulleid foresaw the end of steam (and/or his career at the Southern with impending nationalisation) and decided to play all the cards in his hand in one go?

 

Had steam design continued in Britain (beyond the Riddles/LMS Cabal) might there may have been a place for some of the innovations from Leader to have been incorporated in new designs?  Sad to say, I really don't think there was anything novel of sufficient merit - and I'm not aware of adoption in subsequent steam development elsewhere in the world (except where already present, e.g. thermic syphons).  

 

With a small dose of sentimentality, I'd say it was certainly a political decision to eliminate steam with indecent haste, especially to be replaced with untried and untested diesels.  Diesels have advantages in many respects, but not exclusively, and the costs of the two forms would have made for interesting comparisons during the oil crisis.  As it was, Britain had already fallen behind post-war steam development by the time the decision was taken to phase it out - a look to Czechoslovakia would have shown us what "modern" steam could achieve in reality, beyond which messrs. Chapelon, Porta, Wardale & Co., could demonstrate even greater potential, had their ideas been given full reign.  But, for all his undoubted genius, Bulleid and his Leader would never have achieved significance in that particular hall of fame.

[uax6]

But various features really did work:

The centreless bogie design was later used on the 1co-co1 bogies

The damping arrangements on the bogies were later used in the br type 6 and B4 bogies.

 

I wonder what would have happening if the second leader had actually been finished, would it have suffered like the first one with valve sizures (it was said that the bogie with the valve issues had been reversed without stopping while under test, causing lots of damage which was just straightened out as best they could).

 

But it was a white elephant, poorly designed for the task it was supposed to do, an M7 replacement for empty stock movement out of Waterloo, where the trains would have had to be reduced in length to allow it to get behind the signals....)

 

Andy g

[Nearholmer]

Making a thing work, provided it doesn't seek to break the laws of physics, is always possible, given enough time, money, and effort.

 

Making a thing successful isn't.

 

Success implies fitness for purpose, greater economy, or functionality, or saleability than the alternatives etc.

 

Leader could almost certainly have been made to work, in fact it almost did work, but it still wouldn't have been a success.

 

(As an OT aside, there are a few things around that are successful, in the saleability sense, but actually don't really work ...... I'm thinking of certain "designer" clothing, for instance.)

 

K