What Ifs, and Locos that never were.

One of documents that was circulated around the senior officers on the railway as the design crystallised set out load limits and operational range without refuelling on a variety of lines particularly in the West Country, generally around the 250 ton mark for lots of the lines west of Exeter (apart from Ilfracombe). That would be equivalent to 8 coaches. It rather suggests to me that Bulleid may even have been thinking of a better solution for those lines than the West Country pacifics were, along with replacing the Maunsell N class locos. In particular, high-speed capability wasn't too much of an issue, so they would have been closer to a genuine mixed traffic design with high adhesion; and the reversible nature of the design would have meant that turntables could have been removed with concomitant cost saving (several of the turntables in the west weren't big enough for Bulleid pacifics anyway, limiting their use).

The original order was going to be for 25 locos, and it is hard to see that it would have been cost-effective to replace 25 M7s in that way, but conceivably that number of locos may have been able to work the entire service west of Exeter, especially if they had been able to deliver high availability so they could run passenger services during the day and freight at night.

Tom

 

Holcroft's unpublished "Life with Locos" says a bit more - I flicked through it in the NRM a while ago. From memory (and my memory may not be 100% correct on this) Bulleid sidelined H a bit and H wanted to retire early - but was persuaded to stay as the war had started and there was a lot more work to be done. They got on better after both had retired.

I seem to recall from somewhere else that the zero balance weights on the Pacifics was Holcroft's idea.

A snippet...

 

I think Holcroft had got quite used to being for the voice arguing for innovation and doing things a bit differently. I get the impression from Locomotive Adventure that within the Maunsell regime he almost defined himself in contrast to Clayton, who would default to Midland practice, and Finlayson, who would default to Urie and was adept at getting Clayton to accept it.

Then Bulleid came along and innovation was flavour of the month, but Holcroft wasn't needed to provide the ideas. In fact, in his own words: "It was soon evident to me, however, that Bulleid was taking questions of new design or developments into his own hands and that the role assigned to me would tend to be consultative in character; there would be no more opportunity for the tail to wag the dog, as of yore!" That said, the lack of reciprocating balance on the Pacifics was indeed Holcroft's idea, it was tried on a Schools first to prove the concept. He was also later able to interest Bulleid in the Anderson Steam Heat Conservation system, but due to nationalisation and subsequent events nothing ever came of it.

I don't get the impression that he disliked Bulleid, he just knew that under Bulleid he would not get to have the sort of influence he had previously enjoyed.

 

Its at the Nrm is it? Thanks, I shall have to try and get there, its on my want to read list.

 

Ive read a bit about the Irish turf burning loco, CC1 which Bulleid designed after he went to Ireland. That did actually do a few freight turns so it did run in revenue earning service, although not much, so it seemed to have been slightly better. Maybe this design was modified after the experience with 36001?

 

From memory I don't think CC1 had the sleeve valves that caused all the problems on 36001

 

Yes the sleeve valves seemed to be the undoing of it. As has been said on here, they were used in some aircraft engines and also in some up market cars, Daimlers I think had them, and they gave trouble in those applications. The maintenance of both expensive cars and aircraft would be in much better conditions than a steam running shed and if the design gave trouble there, then why use them on a loco?

They were tested on a Brighton Atlantic, Hartland Point, I think it was. Did that operate satisfactorily?

 

I don't think it did! I don't believe it worked a revenue earning train whilst fitted with them.

 

As I recall, it was very heavy on coal and water, and on at least one occasion had a motion failure of the type that later plagued the Leader.

I think even if you were the staunchest of Bulleid apologists, you'd have to recognise that the trials left sufficient doubt that there wasn't the justification on the basis of those trials to effectively start series production of a radical untried design.

Tom

 

In retrospect yes, but wasn't there a concern at the time about the availability of oil, given the foreign currency situation?

When The Leader is discussed in railway enthusiast circles, the conversation is often narrowly technical, focusing on the desirability or otherwise of specific innovations such as the sleeve valves or power bogie concept. But I think there is an equally fascinating story waiting to be told about the sequence of management decisions that led to the project. When all is said and done, Bulleid was given a traffic requirement from the Operating Department, and on the back of that, gained sanction for 25 locos of entirely novel construction, plus an experimental test bed to try out some ideas. The test bed was inconclusive at best (and that is a generous interpretation) but nonetheless series production began. The prototype was dismal, but it took a long time to cancel the project. So the management of all that is interesting. I guess it's not unusual that you get a failing project that no-one wants to stop, because it means crystallising the failure in objective terms - easier to keep going and hope it all works out in the end. Leader seems to demonstrate that on a big scale.

Tom

 

Because if you examine the minutes of the various SR board meetings towards the end of WW2, its quite clear that the board were very concerned about the lack of a modern small tank engine design to replace the M7s. Yes they may have eventually wanted to electrify everything east of the SWML but they were realists and knew that thanks to WW2 this would be decades away and mass dieselisation wasn't going to be an option either due to the need to import oil. Thus the minutes confirm Bullied got financial authorisation for his leader project precisely because he argued that a radical, dual cabbed, coal powered solution could meet the M7 replacement needs - as well as bring other advantages, plus act as a replacement for larger classes too when their turn came round.

To some extent I feel there are parallels between the last days of the SR and the early days of the LMS - in both cases the boards knew action was required with respect to certain loco types, yet the CME didn't seem to listen to their needs. On the SR this left a legacy of far too many 'light pacifics' and a no modern tank engines, while in the early days of the LMS it was a shortage of decent express motive power and far to many mid range 4-4-0s

 

On the Southern, possibly the experience with the River class derailing at Sevenoaks in 1927 turned them against the idea of 2-6-4 tank locos? The W class which were built afterwards were only ever used on freight, despite the fact that the LMS had a large fleet of them which operated very well, as did the GWR with their 2-6-2 tanks?

Piece of trivia - the only 2-6-2 tanks the Southern ever had were the Lynton & Barnstaple ones!

 

While this is indeed true, there was nothing to stop Bulleid pushing the SR to have another go. Yes there was talk of using the Q1 as a basis for something but that never made its way to a firm proposal. Certainly given his persona, had Bulleid pushed for a batch of 2-6-4T/ 2-6-2T tanks to replace the M7s - he had enough force of personality to make it happen if he put his mind to it. However such 'boring' locos were not his thing and did not give him the opportunity to exercise his talent for radical thinking (which was one of the reasons the SR board appointed him CME in the first place).

 

Having made this all encompassing statement, I'm currently reading 'Landscape With Machines' by LTC Rolt in which He refers to Willans as his Uncle- as I called Him, It seems that Kyrle Willans was married to Rolts Godmother Hero Taylor, who in turn was sister to Rolts Uncle George. All I can suggest is that you try to work that out, cos I can't, I think we should just accept the 'Uncle' title.

 

Was it just the M7s he was intent on replacing? how about the O2s and SECR H Class and the various Brighton 0-6-2 tanks as well?

 

O2s? Can't imagine a leader on the Isle of Wight somehow...

 

I think Riddles really had no option but to scrap the Leader. It was a long way off being useable as a reliable loco, a great deal more development work would have been needed, the firemans position was not acceptable as it stood, it wasn't reliable and was 30 tons overweight. Also, it was obvious that a decent, modern design of 2-6-4 tank was what was needed and some Fairbairn LMS ones were drafted to the Southern region.

 

It might have worked slightly better if it had been oil fired.