Even with modern steels and lubricants, sleeve valves working with superheated steam would be difficult to do reliably. Poppet valves (balanced or not) would likely not be a lot better as they are prone to seat wear at high superheat. Believe it or not, piston valves or balanced slide valves are probably the best suited ones for high superheat steam, especially if modern antifriction coatings on one of the mating parts of each set of mating parts were used, instead of oil.

Just my $0.02.

JD

Hi Ady1 ,

Even if all the design faults of the Leader had been ironed out and the thing ran perfectly it’s performance would not have been any different to a conventional and much simpler engine like a Black5 .

Bulleid – like so many other dreamers and Inventors before and since – did not understand limit states in engineering .

For any given feasible top pressure and temperature of a steam locomotive the maximum performance is predictable . It happens that a very simple engine achieves more than 80 % of all that is possible . To get any higher requires ever more levels of cost and complexity .

Real engineers like Gresley , Stanier , Churchward and Chapelon knew when to stop fiddling – basically make the best job of an essentially simple engine and leave it at that .

Same goes for rocket engines .

Regards ,

MikeW

Edited By MICHAEL WILLIAMS on 11/12/2013 22:58:13

As I recall, the ACE3000 project had a major feature article in Trains magazine published in the USA at the time. Maybe Google can locate it.

The ACE3000 design team didn't seem too bothered by the facts of the relatively low efficiency of electric power generation by steam for widely varying loads. They were very preoccupied with packaging the whole coal burning lot in a nice painted shell no bigger and with the same DC power trucks as a common US diesel electric locomotive of the day. The proprietors of the enterprise were spurred on by the dream of railroads again using coal as their main fuel source, rather than oil. The main reason for this was the fact that the proprietors owned major coal fields in the US with excess capacity, and were tired of paying ever rising diesel oil costs to transport their product by diesel electric locomotives. They also sold the idea to investors as a way to boost domestically mined coal (mined with USA union labour of course) versus using oil from Saudi Arabia/OPEC.

The whole concept had been done quite well by Norfolk and Western RR with their Jawn Henry project many years before. With that job, N&W found out that complexity was hard to build and maintain and efficiencies were not sufficiently better to justify a much more complex machine than their excellent in-house-built conventional steam locomotives.

The ACE would have had a prettier paint job than Jawn Henry though…

JD

John,

Trouble is unless someone thinks outside of the box progress is nil ……

I agree with you in general as progress is only made when new ideas are tried out and consequent problems are sorted out. However Bulleid was too late in his attempt to make an improved steam locomotive as at the time he designed his Leader class loco steam was in its death throws with the more thermally efficient diesel loco taking over across the world.

There were arguments to have developed steam locos further in the face of completion from diesels but these would only be on the grounds of using an abundant local fuel (coal) rather than imported oil, social reasons such as keeping people employed in the rail and coal industries instead of raising unemployment etc. However the tide of dieselization became a tsunami wiping out all serious steam engine development through out the world. All the thinking outside all the boxes in the world would not have changed this particular issue.

Eric

It is just not right to present Bullied as a second class engineer, unable to see the limitation of technology.

The poor bugger made an incredible job out of a very difficult deal, and he never complained.

Bullied not only understood the limitations of technology. He worked with the limitations and found new and better ways to solve problems. He had courage, and everyone knew he was inspired.

You have to view bullied from the perspective of the Brighton locomotive works and the constraints that it had always posed since the time of Craven. It was not poised to be easily converted to the manufacture of diesel or electric traction. No-one wanted to lose the skills or lay off the workers. Least of all bullied.

The writing was on the wall early in the 20th century. Brighton wasn't big enough for the manufacture of the engines it was still designing at the end.

The history, the knowledge, the lineage was present right up to the end.

Far from not understanding the technology, Bullied designed an engine that would ideally use all of the capabilities at Brighton, and ensure continuity of the site.

As it happened, days of steam were numbered, and no-one would sanction switch-over of the site (it's skills, facilities and capabilities) from steam to diesel or electric. The site at Brighton wasn't big enough, and had nowhere to expand. Logically it could never have competed with larger locomotive works.

There is no way that Bullied could have gone off on a tangent on his own. He worked within the scope of his financial masters. They allowed it to happen because they knew they were on the line too. They needed his inspiration, and he delivered something that no-one else could.

In my view, when Brighton finally died, it was inevitable that Pendolinos would be manufactured in Italy. Just as Isetta micro-cars would be made on the site of the old railway works. From the birth of the modern age, to the recent turn of century, the story is complete. It is now almost impossible (except for the observant) to know that the engineering works was there.

The thing is that although the closure of Brighton railway works was bitterly lamented for a long time locally, it's brains were always best. It always did more with less. It's just that in the end land costs were too high.

Edited By Andy Ash on 12/12/2013 14:28:47

Yes, there is a short film which was available on youtube fairly recently. No idea whether it is still there, but it is absolutely fascinating and well worth searching for.

Howard

Having been a Bristol engineer I would love to agree with you but the Napier Sabre, once it’s problems were overcome (and there were many) could be considered a success. Far too few RR Eagles were made to pass comment on that engine.

JA

I have just had a trawl through youtube and it seems the video is unavailable. Possibly the Bulleid Society may have access to it? I'd like to see it again.

Kevan Ayling of Worthing club built a 5"G Leader. As the end cabs look like those of a tube train, I called it the "Ongar Express." That remark went into the newsletter and ended up being quoted in ME.

But it had piston valves. Had Bulleid stuck to piston valves and a conventional firebox he would have had a winner. He could have put the driver in with the fireman as well, even called it a Kitson Meyer, which was a well proven type of loco

Bristol's work on the sleeve valve was funded by the Air Ministry (the government anyway) who would have owned the rights, intellectual property etc, to Fedden's work. They had every right to pass the details on to other firms. As for the Sabre, it was quickly abandoned after the War until the Hercules and Centaurus.

Good things these steam engines!

JA