Bulleid 'Leader'

I'm considering a Leader for my OO Bulleid collection. If I take the plunge, I will have it painted in Malachite green and numbered CC101.

 

And yet remove the smoke deflectors and what's left bears a distinct resemblance to Collett's treatment of the King and Castle which receives so much opprobrium.

 

Yes indeed. As with a certain CME, how much of it is based on popular viewpoints rather than individual preferences and thinking?

 

Methinks even a moderately unbiased list of suspects in that regard would be fairly substantial!

 

Re 5AT, did they ever mount a serious fund raising? One minute it was all gungho, and the next it had been pulled. Possibly it was because they could not find an "anchor" investor and were reluctant to launch without that? Or was there a falling out within the organisation? Can you shed any light on what transpired?

 

I think the problem with the GWR steam loco streamlining was in the detail more than the concept, i.e. poorly designed panel joints, retaining the copper capped chimney and standard safety valve shroud (why, for goodness sake, was it still polished too).

 

Given sustained steam operations over 90mph were vanishingly rare anywhere, internal streamlining has always been vastly more important in any event. I might have said "IMHO", but with generations of competent and highly experienced engineers having stated the same, I didn't feel the need!

 

I was asked elsewhere over what would be a modern steam loco.

Given that electric traction will be the approach of choice, I suggest an updated Leader would be a good fit to fill in all those duties on unelectrified lines that could not be met by railcars.

Assume gas or oil firing, monitored by CCTV. Substitute a WC/BB boiler for the one actually fitted - and you no longer need the passage past the boiler so it can be centrally mounted (and like a US road switcher, need not be shrouded. so emergency external catwalks can be provided) . Modern - or even 1960's technology - would make the sleeve valves viable, and , as Bullied himself said after the case, the engines should be replaceable units like a modern car gearbox. And talking of gears, maybe you'd replace the chain couplings to the wheels with gears or even good old-fashioned rods. Bullied used chains on the Leader (and the MN/WC/BB valve gear) because of the shortage of facilities for gear production during and shortly after WW2.

Starting from there, I'm sure a modern and effective multi-purpose steam loco could be produced. You'd obviously include all the development in the steam cycle that have been introduced by Porta and Wardale and were to go into the 5AT project.

But it would still need two crew, more preparation and disposal than a diesel, and lose the simplicity of the classic steam engine. So sadly I don't think it would be competitive unless diesels are banned.

I wonder if among you there is an artistic genius who could sketch out what I'm describing?

 

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Diesels will always have the advantage that they can be switched on and off pretty much at will, and as you say, do not require a crew of two. I don't have any idea how the add blue thingy on my van works, but the result it gives is that if I drove through a congested city, what comes out of the exhaust is cleaner than the air at the intake. I've seen 500hp+ agri tractors and lorries that use add blue, so one imagines it would be possible to create an effective system to clean up the exhaust of a locomotive, in which case the proven utility of a diesel electric would surely win over steam.

 

Why not build an replica Leader shell, with a small boiler, running an generator, oil fired, powering electric traction motors ,fit a back up bank of batteries to provide immediate power, so the unit can operate when cold and the boiler cuts in and provides power once up to pressure and also recharges used battery voltage.

 

If you use an oil or gas fired flash steam generator they produce steam from cold or tick over very quickly due to low water mass vs heating area.


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The big problem in all circumstances is the inherently poor thermal efficiency of the steam locomotive. Its always going to be a poor user of energy. The advantages of the steam locomotive came, I think, in the relatively low technology required and the relatively low initial cost, but those are hardly great benefits in these days compared to labour and fuel consumption.

 

No question that tech works well. Sentinel, certainly, developed it a long way (later models featured automated firing). The question surely has to be whether sufficient steam can be produced for purpose. Here, my mind goes back to Gresley's W1 in original condition. The Yarrow water-tube boiler (while on an entirely different scale, in concept, not a million miles removed from the flash boiler ) wasn't exactly the loco's most successful feature. I suspect that, were any workable redesign viable, we'd not now be anicipating the prospect of the A1SLT P2 being followed by a V4.

 

The vast majority of Steam Cars were made by Stanley, they had a funny design of oil fired vertical fire tube boiler, and were definitely NOT flash steam generators.

 

I think the 5AT got nowhere because it was neither one thing or the other. It had no historical lineage and wasn't a member of a class which ever ran, so no real appeal to steam enthusiasts. Yet it was still steam so modern traction fans wouldn't be interested either.

Also, I didn't think it was particularly attractive. Vaguely German outline with a huge bogie tender like something off the Pennsylvania or New York Central.

 

Quite agree that the original Hush=Hush boiler wasn't up to it on a mobile steam engine. But when replaced by the conventional boiler, went on to live a "twilight" life supplying steam etc at [Darlington] North Road Works until the works closed in 1965-6. Out lasting the rest of the loco by a few years. Anyway back on thread everybody......

 

Getting back to my original posting, of the boiler being used only to spin up an generator, with axle hung traction motors providing the actual means of traction, How much steam would be needed to spin up an large enough generator, and how big would the generator need to be, for instance, could a normal, for rail use generator be used coupled to a large enough flywheel, or drive, using the steam to rotate it, through a regulated cut off ?