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

[Edwin_m]

There's apparently a monorail in the Far East that works on the atmospheric principle.  See Wikipedia for "atmospheric railway". 

 

Larger-scale applications run into the problem of limited tractive effort - the maximum pressure difference can only be one atmosphere (even less in practice) and there's a limit to the practical cross-section of the pipe.  Multiply these together and you get much less than the tractive effort of a modern locomotive. And you can't double-head to increase the power!  

 

A version using compressed air behind the piston would partly overcome this limitation, but like many other innovative transit systems it's in great danger of being a solution to a non-existent problem.   

[rockershovel]

Interesting stuff about atmospheric railways.

 

Pressure is only 1 bar max, but you CAN increase the size of the piston (as in the Indonesian example, where it is an overhead monorail with the piston in the box) and thereby, increase tractive effort.

 

There is apparently an American version, in which there is a positive overpressure applied to the piston. This also has a sealed piston duct with a magnetic coupling to the carriage, eliminating the seal along the top of the pipe and presumably, eliminating friction losses and reducing loss of pressure by several orders of magnitude.

 

However Boyle's Law still applies - perhaps there is an intercooler as well? - but it all sounds like an exercise in solving a problem which had already been solved by other means..

[Zomboid]

The atmospheric idea was remarkably forward looking. But since then we've invented electricity...

[rockershovel]

The atmospheric idea was remarkably forward looking. But since then we've invented electricity...

That's the problem with looking ahead... sometimes it just isn't the right direction to look.. knowing where you think you are going is at least as important

Edited July 7, 2017 by rockershovel

[jim.snowdon]

As surprising is that it didn't dawn on the promoters of atmospheric railways that the amount of tractive effort that can be generated is limited by the size of the cylinder and the fact that the pressure can never be more than 14psi. The designers of stationary steam engines had already cottoned on to the need for either high pressure steam or ever larger cylinders.

 

We can all thank Trevithick for seeing a better way forward in pioneering high pressure steam engines.

 

Jim

[The Johnster]

Can't see why you couldn't devise an atmospheric system with bogie stock, and it might have an application in underground railways; I have no idea of the costs as compared to electric, which is at least a proven technology.  But it'd be more likely IMHO than Elon Musk's proposed vacuum tube idea where the punters are expected to sit in tiny capsules and be whizzed along at silly speeds; at least you could use vehicles compatible with ordinary railways.

[Coryton]

 But it'd be more likely IMHO than Elon Musk's proposed vacuum tube idea where the punters are expected to sit in tiny capsules and be whizzed along at silly speeds; at least you could use vehicles compatible with ordinary railways.

 

But in the US there's not so much passenger rail to be compatible with. If the capsules are small enough I suppose you could load them onto some kind of flat car for the 'final mile' into town from the hyperloop terminal. But people are pretty good at loading and unloading themselves between transport modes. 

 

In any case I think the hyperloop is more of a competitor to air travel, and planes aren't very compatible with railways once the wings have been bolted on.

[Reorte]

 

In any case I think the hyperloop is more of a competitor to air travel, and planes aren't very compatible with railways once the wings have been bolted on.

Our damned restrictive loading gauge again!

[kevinlms]

Disposing of a loco shown here on video of 73020 accompanied by Public Service Broadcasting from about 31mins...

 

For some unknown reason, the closing scenes show a couple of NSWGR of Australia Class 38's. Any ideas why this is so?

[kevinlms]

As surprising is that it didn't dawn on the promoters of atmospheric railways that the amount of tractive effort that can be generated is limited by the size of the cylinder and the fact that the pressure can never be more than 14psi. The designers of stationary steam engines had already cottoned on to the need for either high pressure steam or ever larger cylinders.

 

We can all thank Trevithick for seeing a better way forward in pioneering high pressure steam engines.

 

Jim

Yes, that is why electricity powered locomotives are vastly superior. Although the power source, is nowhere near the railway, it can be delivered at a much higher pressure or voltage, thus reducing the losses. If for instance the power source of an electric loco, was limited to 12 Volts DC, then it would be just as hopelessly inefficient as a vacuum  powered one.

[Nearholmer]

Wry smile.

 

I have an inkling that Jim might know about all that.

 

Kevin

[john new]

Re the early atmospheric ideas. They did get it to work (if my memory is correct) in S London, Ireland and S Devon. Not sure of the exact sequence of openings. What then occurred, as with several experimental and innovative ideas subsequently, notably tilting trains, is that the teething problems then proved to be more complicated and difficult to fix than could be easily overcome. Rather like Leader in fact.

 

In both cases the ideas were reconfigured and the best kept. APT morphed into other designs and tilting trains are now common. The technology of air power acting on a piston in a tube to provide the traction to move a load does work, but in small scale tubes not for railways, and is in use daily to shift cash and messages in supermarkets etc.

 

Bullied's concept of bogie powered locomotives with a cab at both ends works and was not an experiment per-se, and it was designed in an era when traction was on the cusp of a swap from a mainstream of steam to diesel and electrics. Leader, specifically, failed as too complex, a simpler version of the concept using steam did prove operateable in Eire it was just that using steam pressure from burning turf as the power source didn't prove cost effective long term. It was built to try and address the issue that Eire has no coal or oil without importing it; sadly for steam lovers Bullied was proved wrong long term, steam couldnt compete and diesel was to prove the answer.

 

However, time moves on and in contemporary use the detachable locomotive swapping ends of a train has also now fallen out of favour, fixed rakes with a DVT, and DMUs or EMUs are becoming universal for pax use and also under consideration for freight.

 

So if we look at Leader and it's related simplified cousin the turf burner they were, depending on your viewpoint, either a last attempt to move steam forward using available production and maintenance equipment or a foolhardy waste of money. Some rod drive diesels were built, 08 shunters for example are still in use. The bogie locomotive over rod drive traction ultimately was the way forward for most applications; sixty odd years forward bogie locomotives to pull unpowered vehicles are still being built, BUT have been partially superseded by self contained unit trains able to work in multiple.

Edited July 7, 2017 by john new

[runs as required]

Re the early atmospheric ideas. They did get it to work (if my memory is correct) in S London, Ireland and S Devon. Not sure of the exact sequence of openings. What then occurred, as with several experimental and innovative ideas subsequently, notably tilting trains, is that the teething problems then proved to be more complicated and difficult to fix than could be easily overcome. Rather like Leader in fact.

 

...The bogie locomotive over rod drive traction ultimately was the way forward for most applications; sixty odd years forward bogie locomotives to pull unpowered vehicles are still being built, BUT have been partially superseded by self contained unit trains able to work in multiple.

An admirably lucid summing up of a 'long long walk in the park' of a thread.

Thank you.

dh

[Nearholmer]

The Leader I find harder to understand in context than the turf burner.

 

The Leader was for a railway company that knew very well how to electrify its routes, even if the system it had married itself to, for reasons that made sense at the time, was far from ideal for longer distances. And, burning coal in power stations to generate electricity was not exactly a new science, and a good strategy in a country with rich coal reserves.

 

The turf burner was for a railway that, apart from a couple of short sections, had ne realistic prospect of electrification, because traffic density would never bear it. The country had barely any coal, no known oil reserves, and, at the time, no known gas reserves either. The Shannon hydro scheme was contributing the bulk of electricity. And during WW2, coal imports from Britain effectively ceased, leaving the country in a truly desperate fuel shortage. The science of burning turf in power stations to generate electricity was well understood in both Russia and Germany; that knowledge was available in Ireland, and a good plan, and indeed orders, were in place in 1939, but impeded by the fact that potential suppliers of kit were at war with one another. As above, even once the new gen stations came on line, they weren't really relevant to the railway. So, a bash at burning turf in a loco, as an alternative to oil, made solid sense.

 

As a footnote, peat extraction railways in Germany and Russia did have very successful turf-fired locos (nothing very radical, just a big grate and bunker/tender), and three were bought for the peat carrying line to the first turf gen station in Ireland, but they were laid aside very soon because diesels were a whole lot less hassle to operate!

 

Kevin

Edited July 7, 2017 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

Originally I dismissed the hyperloop as little more than a political spoiling tactic to undermine the California high speed rail plan and not especially credible. However, as I've thought about it I've changed my opinion and now think the idea does have potential as a means of very high speed passenger transport. The basic idea is sound enough technically and could offer extremely high speeds without consuming biblical amounts of energy to overcome air resistance. Whether or not it will be commercially viable I don't know, but I wouldn't dismiss the concept/

[rodent279]

There's apparently a monorail in the Far East that works on the atmospheric principle.  See Wikipedia for "atmospheric railway". 

 

Larger-scale applications run into the problem of limited tractive effort - the maximum pressure difference can only be one atmosphere (even less in practice) and there's a limit to the practical cross-section of the pipe.  Multiply these together and you get much less than the tractive effort of a modern locomotive. And you can't double-head to increase the power!  

 

A version using compressed air behind the piston would partly overcome this limitation, but like many other innovative transit systems it's in great danger of being a solution to a non-existent problem.   

Oh I agree, it's never going to be a substitute for a modern electric railway, but it would be interesting to see if it could be made to work, just for the purpose of proving it can be done.

 

I'd be more inclined to contribute money to something like that, than another resurrection of a long-lost steam loco, which, let's face it, is not really going to be drasticaly different from most steam locos in existence.

 

Another one would be to see a proper broad gauge railway, not just a short demo line like at Didcot. I'd love to see mixed gauge on say the WSR, with replica BG locos & stock. Now that would give us something we don't currently have.

[john new]

Your comments make sense Nearholmer and I suspect the answer on Leader lies more in areas of psychology than engineering, true also for aspects of the pacifics as well as Leader.

 

When I was working on new office and IT projects there always seemed to be the staid and stable KISS option and the interesting and "sexy" higher risk challenging option. Bullied seems to have been allowed, despite the war and subsequent post-war austerity, to take the risky maverick option. Either he was highly motivational, able to persuade the Board to also authorise a risky strategy or able to successfully hide the fact that he was about to experiment with cutting edge engineering innovations from those commissioning the spend.

 

If you are a risk-taker going for the challenge makes sense, practical and incremental progressions are boring; the risk-averse tend towards the safe/KISS option and trials are small scale testing. In recent threads people have asked why the LMS had so many 4Fs and used multiples of small engines before Stanier. The pschyology there was the entire opposite, too safe and stable in engineering development pre-Stanier. Brunel, like Bullied, experimented and had a mixed bag of successes but was lucky enough to have Gooch around to sort out his GWR loco failures.

Edited July 7, 2017 by john new

[rodent279]

If you are a risk-taker going for the challenge makes sense, practical and incremental progressions are boring; the risk-averse tend towards the safe/KISS option and trials are small scale testing. In recent threads people have asked why the LMS had so many 4Fs and used multiples of small engines before Stanier. The pschyology there was the entire opposite, too safe and stable in engineering development pre-Stanier. Brunel, like Bullied, experimented and had a mixed bag of successes but was lucky enough to have Gooch around to sort out his GWR loco failures.

 

That's how you make progress. You try, you make a mistake, you don't always get it right, you learn, you try again, you eventually get it right.

[jjb1970]

I think we are living in very interesting times in terms of technology. For the last 30 or 40 years we've seen a technological revolution in terms of information technology, entertainment and analytics thanks to the astonishing progress of computers and the Internet, yet harder technology has not advanced to anything like the same degree. Engines have utilised electronic control systems to optimise performance but fundamentally the mechanical bits are still pretty much like engines have been for several decades. PLCs and cheap semi-conductors made variable frequency AC drives cheap but again electric motors are recognisable as induction motors and VFDs have been around since at least the 80's. You could go in a brand new thermal power plant and it wouldn't look that different to plants built 30 or 40 years ago. We've lived in an oil economy for so long that it seems almost unthinkable that we could live any other way. Yet we are in one of those rare periods of genuine technology change as we go from an oil economy to...who really knows? Batteries are now a genuine alternative to internal combustion engines (and I believe we may see the idea of electric wires for railways seem a bit yesterday in the near future given some of the battery ideas in development), hydrogen still has advocates, low carbon renewable electricity generation is finally coming of age and quite aside from eco-warriors it is now becoming clear that the economics of electricity generation are turning a corner and market forces also are favouring renewables more and more over thermal generation. We're seeing moves towards distributed generation, micro-grids and energy storage. Not to mention autonomous technologies. Despite all the media hype I don't think we really understand just how profound some of these changes are, they will fundamentally alter economies and society.

[john new]

That's how you make progress. You try, you make a mistake, you don't always get it right, you learn, you try again, you eventually get it right.

Ignore Leader and consider other designers and other classes. The LMS with the later Black 5s, try Caprotti, try Stephenson link, try roller bearings. Incremental testing, what works then add to the fleet if it is justified. On the LNER, similar progressions from the A1 into the A3. Nothing wrong with innovation if it is tested. Perhaps I am overly risk-averse, probably why towards the end of my management career I ended up with the Emergency Planning role BUT chucking everything onto an innovatory untested package is where bankruptcy and failure lie.

 

The GWR tried a Pacific, ended up with better 4-6-0s. Bullied's mistakes for me were putting too many innovations into a full class build before adequate testing. His pacifics, as built, can be fine machines as Tangmere and City of Wells have proved on their day in preservation. However, the valve gear and oil bath have serious flaws a year's testing of a prototype should have identified - the result 30 MNs and 110 WC/BBs built with design flaws.

 

That is not prudent engineering advancement through sensible application of tested innovations. To me it represents the application of flamboyent risk taking which could well have bankrupted the Southern had it not been nationalised.

 

The flaws (innovations failed or related poor design)

 

Oil bath leaks - cladding fires.

Chain stretch

The light pacifics prone to slipping

Smoke drift

Crank axle failure

 

On the positive (innovations worked)

 

Superb boilers

On engine lighting

Edited July 7, 2017 by john new

[Coryton]

I think we are living in very interesting times in terms of technology. For the last 30 or 40 years we've seen a technological revolution in terms of information technology, entertainment and analytics thanks to the astonishing progress of computers and the Internet, yet harder technology has not advanced to anything like the same degree. Engines have utilised electronic control systems to optimise performance but fundamentally the mechanical bits are still pretty much like engines have been for several decades. PLCs and cheap semi-conductors made variable frequency AC drives cheap but again electric motors are recognisable as induction motors and VFDs have been around since at least the 80's. You could go in a brand new thermal power plant and it wouldn't look that different to plants built 30 or 40 years ago. We've lived in an oil economy for so long that it seems almost unthinkable that we could live any other way. Yet we are in one of those rare periods of genuine technology change as we go from an oil economy to...who really knows? Batteries are now a genuine alternative to internal combustion engines (and I believe we may see the idea of electric wires for railways seem a bit yesterday in the near future given some of the battery ideas in development), hydrogen still has advocates, low carbon renewable electricity generation is finally coming of age and quite aside from eco-warriors it is now becoming clear that the economics of electricity generation are turning a corner and market forces also are favouring renewables more and more over thermal generation. We're seeing moves towards distributed generation, micro-grids and energy storage. Not to mention autonomous technologies. Despite all the media hype I don't think we really understand just how profound some of these changes are, they will fundamentally alter economies and society.

 

But also...despite the rise of essentially free phone calls, video conferencing etc., technology hasn't taken much of a chunk out of travel yet. 

 

But it's not hard to imagine that further improvements could make travel much less attractive.

 

In my experience, telephone and video conferencing has its uses, especially with dedicated kit rather than a PC running Skype etc.. But it seems to work best for established teams rather than people you don't know well, and hasn't - yet - replaced conferences and the like. 

 

What is really needed is a way to replicate not the formal part of a meeting but the informal discussions at tea breaks etc. that can often be the most valuable bit of a meeting or conference. I'm not sure how you would do that but maybe there's a way.

 

Talking to grand-children over Skype isn't the same as being there - but one day will it become close enough that's it's just not worth the time and hassle of travelling from one end of the country to another?

[runs as required]

I think we are living in very interesting times in terms of technology. For the last 30 or 40 years we've seen a technological revolution in terms of information technology, entertainment and analytics thanks to the astonishing progress of computers and the Internet, yet harder technology has not advanced to anything like the same degree. Engines have utilised electronic control systems to optimise performance but fundamentally the ....  market forces also are favouring renewables more and more over thermal generation. We're seeing moves towards distributed generation, micro-grids and energy storage. Not to mention autonomous technologies. Despite all the media hype I don't think we really understand just how profound some of these changes are, they will fundamentally alter economies and society.

 

Could I please gently make the point that because we have to read so much on computers now, splitting text into paragraphs every 5 lines or so does make on-screen readability very much easier.

 

dh

[rodent279]

Ignore Leader and consider other designers and other classes. The LMS with the later Black 5s, try Caprotti, try Stephenson link, try roller bearings. Incremental testing, what works then add to the fleet if it is justified. On the LNER, similar progressions from the A1 into the A3. Nothing wrong with innovation if it is tested. Perhaps I am overly risk-averse, probably why towards the end of my management career I ended up with the Emergency Planning role BUT chucking everything onto an innovatory untested package is where bankruptcy and failure lie.

 

The GWR tried a Pacific, ended up with better 4-6-0s. Bullied's mistakes for me were putting too many innovations into a full class build before adequate testing. His pacifics, as built, can be fine machines as Tangmere and City of Wells have proved on their day in preservation. However, the valve gear and oil bath have serious flaws a year's testing of a prototype should have identified - the result 30 MNs and 110 WC/BBs built with design flaws.

 

That is not prudent engineering advancement through sensible application of tested innovations. To me it represents the application of flamboyent risk taking which could well have bankrupted the Southern had it not been nationalised.

 

The flaws (innovations failed or related poor design)

 

Oil bath leaks - cladding fires.

Chain stretch

The light pacifics prone to slipping

Smoke drift

Crank axle failure

 

On the positive (innovations worked)

 

Superb boilers

On engine lighting

Yep, I agree. I'm not advocating rushed change for sake of it, but sometimes you do need to take a risk, try something new, and when it doesn't work out, learn, refine and try again. Churchward didn't achieve what he did by sticking with what was tried, tested and known - he stuck his neck out, experimented and learnt. Not as radically or recklessly as OVSB maybe, but he didn't just stick with what he knew.

 

Now there's another thing that modern materials etc could maybe improve on - chain driven valve gear. Bulleid had a point in trying to minimise wear by encasing in an oil bath, but maybe, again, he was solving a problem that was solvable easier using a Cardan shaft & poppet valves. Maybe an MN with poppet valves should have been tried?

[Nearholmer]

It's probably worth introducing the concept of technology life-cycles into this discussion.

 

The Wikipedia entry is a bit flaky, but here it is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_life_cycle

 

A lot of things on the web, even academic material, get terribly confused between technology life cycles and product life cycles, so beware what you consult.

 

A feature of the mature phase of the technology lifecycle is that there is diminishing return on effort/money spent on attempts to improve the technology ....... it can be improved, but not much, and it costs a lot. Steam locomotion was mature by the 1870s, and very much "late-mature-entering decay phase" by the 1940s.

 

JJB's comment about the comparatively low rate of improvement in "hard" technologies in recent years is a pointer to the fact that those technologies are "late mature", and as such one shouldn't expect very rapid improvement in them.

 

Which doesn't, by the way, mean that they are necessarily on the brink of being superseded: some tech is so good that it lasts ....... well, forever, I guess. It's only the fact that we are 'switched on to' software-based 'tech', which is in a much earlier phase, that has gulled us into thinking that all tech should be advancing like the clappers, and that if it isn't it's about to drop down dead.

 

K

Edited July 7, 2017 by Nearholmer

[rodent279]

It's probably worth introducing the concept of technology life-cycles into this discussion.

 

The Wikipedia entry is a bit flaky, but here it is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_life_cycle

 

A lot of things on the web, even academic material, get terribly confused between technology life cycles and product life cycles, so beware what you consult.

 

A feature of the mature phase of the technology lifecycle is that there is diminishing return on effort/money spent on attempts to improve the technology ....... it can be improved, but not much, and it costs a lot. Steam locomotion was mature by the 1870s, and very much "late-mature-entering decay phase" by the 1940s.

 

JJB's comment about the comparatively low rate of improvement in "hard" technologies in recent years is a pointer to the fact that those technologies are "late mature", and as such one shouldn't expect very rapid improvement in them.

 

Which doesn't, by the way, mean that they are necessarily on the brink of being superseded: some tech is so good that it lasts ....... well, forever, I guess. It's only the fact that we are 'switched on to' software-based 'tech', which is in a much earlier phase, that has gulled us into thinking that all tech should be advancing like the clappers, and that if it isn't it's about to drop down dead.

 

K

 

I guess you could sum that up by saying there are limits as to how "good" any system/technology/machine etc can be. For example, despite having having had internal combustion engines for well over a century now, the thermal efficiency has remained almost unchanged in decades. Even the very best struggle to attain 50%.

Edited July 8, 2017 by rodent279