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

[eastglosmog]

Perhaps it was because by 1945 Britain was bankrupt with no, at that time, home based oil wells, and couldn't afford importing, so the country relied on coal to both use, and export as best we could. Yes we should have dieselized with importing tried, and tested existing good designs (downsized for the British loading gauge), probably from the US, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. But all of this 'what if' is going OT.  

Not strictly true, the Eakring oil field came on stream about 1944, but production nowhere near enough to keep the UK supplied with oil.

[Coryton]

hindsight is a wonderful thing. But all of this 'what if' is going OT.  

 

Well the topic did start with a "what if".

[Kelly]

Iirc it was decided that the American ge diesel engines (2 stroke iirc) were too new a technology to consider in the 1950s-60s. So the only options were sulzer, man, maybach, and English electric and maybe one or two other European designs.

 

A certain bit of irony being that later those American designed engines would be used heavily in the class 59, 66 and 67.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Kelly

[TravisM]

Iirc it was decided that the American ge diesel engines (2 stroke iirc) were too new a technology to consider in the 1950s-60s. So the only options were sulzer, man, maybach, and English electric and maybe one or two other European designs.

 

A certain bit of irony being that later those American designed engines would be used heavily in the class 59, 66 and 67.

 

The GE Cooper-Bessemer based engines from the 50's through to the late 80's are all four stoke as were ALCo engines.  GMD/EMD power units (Classes 59. 66 and 67) are two stoke.

 

Julian Sprott

[Nearholmer]

Kelly

 

We had a fair look at this in the other topic that I linked to above, and IIRC discussed the Crossley engine, too.

 

Kevin

[billbedford]

One thing I did find out, is that Bulleid's BFB wheels aren't "boxpok" at all.

 

 

 

I'm not sure they Bulleid's either. The name on the patent (No 526,518) are Thomas Beaumont, and Joseph Fenwick Bridge both of Atlas Works Sheffield i.e. Firth Brown.

[jjb1970]

Diesel engines were not a new technology in the post war era, neither were electric transmissions. BR continued building steamers in the early post war period out of necessity but even at the time it must have been realised that the steam locomotive was an obsolescent technology forced on BR by financial circumstances.

[The Johnster]

Diesel engines were not a new technology in the immediate post war era in the UK, but until the Ivatt twins nobody had built one that turned out a useful amount of power within the British loading gauge; the problem was, I believe, finding generators of sufficient capacity that were compact and light enough.  Diesels in the UK were a long way from being a proven concept during the time Leader was conceived, although things were moving towards that position very quickly!

[RJD]

To what extent was Riddles' love affair with steam and his desire to produce a line of locomotives "in his name" an issue?  Was he a strong personality that told the civil servants (Hurcombe, etc.) what to do and were the civil servants knowledgeable enough to have told him to rethink the strategy of steam?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Going back to the "What ifs?", what about the coal-fired gas-turbine loco that NBL / Parsons were to construct at the behest of the Ministry of Fuel & Power in 1952.

 

How much (if any) of the loco was actually constructed?

 

I've seen drawings and pictures of a model, but did anything material actually get built? Never seen any pictures of it under construction.

[runs as required]

We had a fair look at this in the other topic that I linked to above, and IIRC discussed the Crossley engine, too.

Wow! That link across to a 20 page thread proved a huge time waster fascinating read.

But there only seemed to be a passing reference to a Crossley engine - powering a reasonably successful Western Australian loco.

My understanding is that Bulleid's selection of the Crossley 2 stroke for CIE proved disasterous -  all being re-engined with EMD power from 1968 onwards

On the other hand his SR collaboration with Raworth had resulted in dependable CC1 electric and 10201 diesel electric locos.

(a long time Bulleid admirer, I did once see the turf burner still standing disused outside Inchicore works in 1963).

 

... the Eakring oil field came on stream about 1944, but production nowhere near enough to keep the UK supplied with oil.

And there was also the Scottish shale industry, the Dorset oil field and the Formby oilfield in West Lancs,

 

But in 1944 still the dependable source of oil for the British was Iran - ever since in 1913 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill nationalised 'Anglo Persian' or after1935 'Anglo Iranian' (better known as BP) to change the Royal Navy over from coal to oil.

It has also controversially emerged that the Partition of India was schemed in 1944 by Churchill so that the more dependable (pro-British Empire) Muslim leader Jinnah rather than Ghandi might protect the Persian Gulf !

dh

Edited July 1, 2017 by runs as required

[EddieB]

I'm away from my library, but from memory only some twenty-eight steam turbine locomotives were built worldwide. The definitive cataloging of the type is in a Swedish language work, appropriate because the most successful examples turned out to be three 2-8-0s built for the TGOJ private railway in that country. They were nearest to a class of steam turbine locos - others were single examples and not perpetuated. All three survive - one in working order (which I haven't had the pleasure to see operating).

 

What this small number represents is that there was scope for further development and experimentation that was never carried out - perhaps had Bulleid put his talents towards improving something based on existing technology, he might have been more successful. However, I think he was ever too idiosyncratic and had a natural tendency to failure - sorry to those who admire the man.

 

Incidentally, I can't see that Leader was really intended as a replacement for the M7 tanks. A case of finding an excuse - any excuse - to design a new, ground-breaker of a loco.

[Dunsignalling]

Iirc it was decided that the American ge diesel engines (2 stroke iirc) were too new a technology to consider in the 1950s-60s. So the only options were sulzer, man, maybach, and English electric and maybe one or two other European designs.

 

A certain bit of irony being that later those American designed engines would be used heavily in the class 59, 66 and 67.

There were, from a British perspective, a number of problems with the US designs of the late 1940s, when the decisions had to be made as to how to fulfil BR's motive power needs for a decade or so ahead.

 

• Size/weight - The US products couldn't simply be shrunk to fit UK railways so any transfer of technology would be limited to rearranging the internals within an entirely British exterior, along with bogies incorporating more axles to spread the load. No advance on 10000/1.

 

• Power - The designs working in numbers in the states were only of 1500hp, heavy trains needed multiple locos to move them. Engine release necks just weren't (in most cases) able to accept that sort of length over here. Getting 1500hp out of UK diesels short enough to be used in pairs over nearly all of the system wasn't on the horizon and wouldn't come until the advent of the Class 33 and the Hymek in the early 1960s, by which time it was no longer a priority. 

 

• Cost - The UK didn't have the foreign exchange required to purchase foreign-made locos, even if the US industry could have produced something suitable. They were pretty fully occupied supplying their home market.

 

• Politics - The true choice at the time was between Riddles vision (right or wrong) and continuing to produce/develop existing Big Four types. Having nationalised the railways, it was necessary to demonstrate that "something was being done". That was much easier to convey by parading the shiny all-new Britannia than piecemeal re-runs of what had gone before. 

 

Getting back on Topic

 

The Leader, perhaps ironically, encapsulated the same drawbacks as the American diesels, too big, too heavy and too expensive. It was also a prime example of stuffing too many innovations into one box. Even if all the engineering features could have been made to work at the same time, it was probably an answer to the wrong question.  

 

John

Edited July 1, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[Edwin_m]

Going back to the questions I asked near the beginning, I haven't read anything to suggest that in the unlikely event of Leader being technically successful in itself, it would have extended the life of steam much beyond what actually happened.  By the mid-1960s I think it was obvious that diesel was the right answer for non-electrified routes, as although some classes were failures others were proving themselves.  As I mentioned before, there are some debates to be had about whether the newer steam locos should have stayed in use for longer, or conversely whether instead of building the Standards older designs could or should have been kept in service until reliable diesels became available.  But I don't think there's any question that the replacement of steam at about that time was the right thing to do - and a successful Leader would not have changed this. 

Edited July 1, 2017 by Edwin_m

[Horsetan]

I'm away from my library, but from memory only some twenty-eight steam turbine locomotives were built worldwide. The definitive cataloging of the type is in a Swedish language work, appropriate because the most successful examples turned out to be three 2-8-0s built for the TGOJ private railway in that country. They were nearest to a class of steam turbine locos - others were single examples and not perpetuated. All three survive - one in working order (which I haven't had the pleasure to see operating)......

Only ever seen this film:

 

http://youtu.be/ZsrzUjcHeAs

 

The whine of the turbine reminds me very much of a jet engine.

[Coryton]

. It was also a prime example of stuffing too many innovations into one box.

 

 

An error perhaps repeated in the APT-P?

[runs as required]

 I think he was ever too idiosyncratic and had a natural tendency to failure - sorry to those who admire the man.

I've only just happened across this current interest in 'failure', particularly among scientists

Apparently it relates to being able to test and replicate (and so prove/disprove) theory.

My old friend right from seriously Asberger Child Genius to Oxford scientist always lectures me on philosopher Karl Popper who propounds this

There is a new Museum of Failure in Sweden.

 

I K Brunel must surely be a high scorer in this select band, Bulleid much further down - around half marks.

I once led a successful Failures workshop at a professional summer school. My own confessed failures rated in the 10-20 range :-(

dh

Edited July 1, 2017 by runs as required

[coachmann]

When regarding steam as an outmoded or inefficient form of motive power, it depends on what it is compared with. It was certainly a lot cheaper than thousand of horses in the 18th Century and is still an affordable and profitable way of hauling trains today.  But the real key to the rapid U-turn that occurred in the mid 1950's lay in the British workman and politics. Take a big strike and it was no coincidence that a modernization plan was rapidly drawn up soon afterwards despite steam loco building only being part-way through. Immigration from Africa and India started to be actively promoted too. In short, it was to reduce the wages bill along with exasperation at the indigenous working class. The inevitable advances in technology and automation is always with us of course and they would have played their part in the whole manpower-reduction process anyway.

 

In a Nationalized BR, Bulleids folly didn't stand an earthly in being acceptable to loco crews. One only has to look at other activities on BR to see that the Trades Unions would have been brought into 'Leader' manning matters. All men want is a quiet shift. When 'Britannia's' changed their regular routine on the W.Region, there was trouble. I needn't mention the trouble in the diesel era.....And it is still on-going!

Edited July 1, 2017 by coachmann

[jjb1970]

The difference in thermal efficiency between a diesel and a steam reciprocating engine is something that can be objectively quantified. You can also objectively quantify a range of other comparators such as man hours per service hour. The real killer is emissions, putting efficiency, man hours, cost per KWhr etc to one side there is no practical way you'd make steam locomotive emissions anything like being acceptable if combusting coal in a steam locomotive. And using oil or gas in a steam locomotive in preference to using it in a diesel or gas turbine is bonkers. Of course, electric traction is much better again.

[The Johnster]

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?

 

No.

[jim.snowdon]

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

 

Well, yes. Let's start with the basics, that the Leader was in many ways a re-invention of the Kitson Meyer articulated, which was itself quite successful, although eclipsed by the Beyer Garratt.

 

Then, there are the detail elements that outlasted the Leader, such as the pedestal suspension and oil dampers for the axleboxes, which substantial elements of which made it into the later B4 and Mk 6 motor bogies, and the sliding pads and virtual centre pivot arrangement that made it to the SR/EE/BR series of 1Co-Co1 diesel electrics. The chain drive worked, but with the adoption of individual axle drives on diesels was an evolutionary dead end, beyond its much earlier adoption on small industrial steam and diesel locomotives.

 

That the concept of Leader could work was amply demonstrated by its Irish successor, which embodied markedly fewer novelties. Whether it was a wothwhile concept, in terms of a double-ended go-anywhere locomotive compared to a large tank locomotive, is an entirely different question. From a 1950s perspective, without the hindsight of the problems that would encumber steam traction as a whole and how rapid dieselisation would be, the idea might have had a future, but in a simpler form. What there was not, was any real reason for the BTC to get involved in a high risk project from one of the now nationalised railway companies; there were better things to be getting on with.

 

Jim

[Coryton]

 

In a Nationalized BR, Bulleids folly didn't stand an earthly in being acceptable to loco crews. One only has to look at other activities on BR to see that the Trades Unions would have been brought into 'Leader' manning matters. All men want is a quiet shift. When 'Britannia's' changed their regular routine on the W.Region, there was trouble. I needn't mention the trouble in the diesel era.....

 

If Leaders had come into use, with just a driver in the cab and a fireman elsewhere, it might have set an interesting precedent when it came to double manning diesel engines (or not).

[uax6]

Another success was the use of bogies with all wheels driving. This gave maximum weight for adhesion, and she could pull long trains quite easily (on a good day!).

 

The brake system was also regarded as very good. I recall she had two vacuum cylinders on the inside end of each bogie, which worked blocks on each wheel. I can't recall if she had steam brakes as well..

 

The boiler was regarded as being very good, especially the use of thermic syphons, although the dry firebox was a disaster, but again it showed how good the boiler was as even after the heating surface was more or less halved, she still steamed easily.

 

Andy G

[TravisM]

What I think is missing here is that both Bulleid and Riddles were both given brief's to find replacement's for life expired loco's and I'm surprised that the Southern Railway board even went with the Leader project given that they and laterly BR's Southern Region were going headlong into 3rd rail electrification and also diesel technology was on the rise, even though it was still in it's infancy, for DMU's and shunters.

 

As it's been pointed out in previous threads on here, Riddles was also briefed to find replacements for worn out steam traction but as he was very much a steam man, he followed the safe path, and designed reliable, simple to maintain steam traction and though some say he was LMS biased, Leader just didn't fit into his or BR's plan.  For all his fault's, he was also very aware that all the steam infrastructure was already there and not only was diesel and electric traction expensive to precure, then you had the additional costs of depots, oil, electrification, etc and given the financial state of the country after WWII, the money just wasn't there.

 

As to the original question, Leader was doomed to fail given the lack suitable materials and technical expertise, also the BR and political will.

 

Julian Sprott

[EddieB]

I've only just happened across this current interest in 'failure', particularly among scientists

Apparently it relates to being able to test and replicate (and so prove/disprove) theory.

My old friend right from seriously Asberger Child Genius to Oxford scientist always lectures me on philosopher Karl Popper who propounds this

There is a new Museum of Failure in Sweden.

 

I K Brunel must surely be a high scorer in this select band, Bulleid much further down - around half marks.

I once led a successful Failures workshop at a professional summer school. My own confessed failures rated in the 10-20 range :-(

dh

To fail once is unfortunate, to fail many times is genius!

 

I had considered, but dared not mention Brunel as a shining example, in my previous post.