["No Comment"]

The history of this, the most infamous of British locomotives, is shrouded in secrecy. This probably to save official embarrassment... Oliver Vaughn Bulleid Snell was the last CME of the Southern Railway and trained under Sir Nigel Greasley and designed some very nice and functional rolling stock -but like Francis Webb everything else is forgotten under the evil shadow of the one glaring mistake. With Webb it was the compound locomotive, with "OVB" it was Leader.

The original authorisation to build a new class of tank locomotive was given by Sir Eustace Missendon who was then Head of Southern Railways prior to the Nationalisation. What he authorised -was the drawing below:

See Picture 1.

What came out of the workshops at Brighton was this:

See Picture 2.

The drawing shown in Picture 1 is fairly reasonable extension of a "Merchant Navy" type Southern Railways locomotive. Which would have had the unique Bulleid chain driven valve system with three internal cylinders acting on the central drive axle and power transferred to the other axles via con-rods, Boxpok wheels et al. In this it is a simple Kitson Meyer type of arrangement and quite frankly should be nothing out of the ordinary...

How Bulleid got from the drawing of a stretched Merchant Navy to the dieselesque locomotive in Picture 2 is a "known unknown". Gone are the con-rods we now have chains, the three internal cylinders remain as does the chain driven valve gear...

If I am to build this locomotive, then it would have to be as the original drawing as authorised by Missendon.

What amazes me is the fact that Riddles let Bulleid get so far off the beaten track with the sheer excesses that this locomotive entailed. Riddles also insisted that the locomotive be given exhaustive dynamometer trials and tests.

Some time later(!)

I have all three of Kevin Robertsons Books on "Leader" and "Experimental Southern Steam"... I also have Earnie Shepherds book on the CIE turf burners No. 356 and CC1. I would love to see someone figure out how to build No. 356 -it would look wonderful with its Franco Crosti boiler and a Leyland bus engine powering the fan on the wagon towed behind it...

How to build a working "Leader" is often the subject of Sunday evenings at the pub -sometimes entire beer festivals have passed on this very subject(!) It is generally agreed that it would be possible, but not using the sleeve valve cylinders -but rather 3 simple "ossys". A more "conventional" boiler of the "Roundhouse" type would work very well. The chain gear linkage between the axles is also a point of mention. Several people (myself included) believe that the cracking of the central axle was due in part to the unequal drive load on the axle. I would have chains driving both axles from either end of the central axle -it would look neater as well!

I would love to see one built as a steam model -but I would also caution anyone thinking of building one to read all three of Kevin Robertsons books -especially the THIRD one. "Leader" as it came out of the shops at Brighton was not the "Leader" that was authorized originally. There are more than a few interesting models that could be produced from the drawings in the third book on "Leader".

As to "Leader" being a great step forward -I would say no...

I would argue that the last great step forward for the steam locomotive was the "Golwe" design. It is perhaps at this point several students of locomotive design reach for the cyanide tablets(!)

If the pressure to the cylinders was kept at below 3 BAR then normal silicone tubing could be used to provide the flexible linkages between the steam bogies and the main steam lines from the boiler -there would be no mucking about with intersecting hemispheres to provide the connection. In a model I would centrally mount the boiler and not use 15 tonnes of scrap iron to level it out with(!) Given that the BR drawings for the production "Leader" show it to be a de facto Kitson Meyer type of loco, it's articulation maths are all well known and given a centrally mounted boiler the COG calculations are straight forward. I would personally go for a butane gas flue boiler rather than spirit as it is far easier to control and thermodynamically more efficient.

So, the boiler is easy to make, the cylinders are available off the shelf as U.S.E. modules to lock together, giving three per bogie as per the original, steam control is a simple valve. There does on the initial run through seem to be very few problems with building one(?)

According to the First book by Kevin Robertson "Sir Eustace Missenden" was to be the name of the first of the series... He was also the person who gave the final say for the Southern Railway to start construction of it. Other ones in the series were to be named "Sir Winston Churchill" "Field Marshal Montgomery" and "Sir Hubert Walker". The CIE turf burner no.356 did consist of a 2-6-0 loco and tender with a wagon with the infamous Leyland Bus engine running the fan for the "pressurised combustion chamber". I do have an actual photo of it at Inchicore -taken by a Mr Casserley (hmm.. where've I heard that name before?) The shot below shows the original eBay image which I did buy from BZMOTMAN’s shop!!!

You can see the Franco Crosti type pre heaters on either side of the boiler. The plumbing for the exhaust gases is seen to exit the base of the pre-heaters and climb up and over the cab. The rectangular aero plumbing from the Leyland bus engine can be seen passing under the cab and entering the “pressurised combustion chamber” from the side.

The CC-1 turf burner as described in the book by Ernie Shephard could be built quite easily I believe. It is very much a Mk2 Leader and it shows. Gone are the sleeve valves and it has poppet valves operated with a Walshaerts type linkage -no more chains here! I would have to do some experiments to give you some idea on the calorific potential of John Innes Number 1 but I think that using Peat or its equivalent could be a non starter -literally... The initial experiments with no.356 showed that the problems of Carbon Monoxide production were "quite severe" and it "back fired" on a regular basis. The Leyland bus engine was used to boost air into the combustion chamber -this improved steaming by 60%.

Mixing the Peat with Coal dust or equivalent -would be a possible. The firebox in the CC-1 is a "sort of" water gas & producer gas of the de Porta type. How you would manage the introduction of the required steam and then air into the hot fuel to produce the Hydrogen (water gas) and Carbon Monoxide (producer gas) that burns in the fire tubes is possibly beyond the requirement of a G3 model -but I do know that there have been successful de Porta combustion chambers run at 3 and a half inch. I would say that it is too fiddly for G3 loco -maybe it should be a N2.5GA loco problem?

Well in the spirit of glorious mad adventurism -and for the simple hell of it, I am going to run some experiments throughout the weekend and report back here with the results as I find them.

Having "secured" a 1 Kilogramme test sample of John Innes No.1 compost from “Her Pinkness” I am currently drying it in the microwave in the greenhouse (as to WHY there is a microwave in the greenhouse -it has to do with sterilising soil for her plants).

Right!

First part of the experimental results are in: after 20 minutes at Defrost rating in the microwave and weighing it until it stops losing weight we find that the water content of John Innes No.1 is 174 Grammes per Kilogramme.

The next stage will be to do a complete combustion in air to find out how much of it is ash and then a sealed combustion directing the fumes to an ignition source until no further ignition occurs.

The first part will be done by heating a sample in an open Lyons Golden Syrup tin on the cooker and weighing it until there is no more weight loss (Aerobic combustion). The second part will be done by putting the lid on the tin, cooking it and directing the gasses to a pipe and a source of ignition -a candle (Anaerobic combustion).

The difference between the ash weight at the end of aerobic combustion and the weight at the end of the anaerobic combustion gives me the fraction that is combustable material.

The tin of Lyons Golden Syrup was handy as we are having treacle pudding for tea!

Having divided the test sample into two 400 Gramme lots I began the burn...

The first burn test took 30 minutes and was as smelly as I remember it was from my Student Teacher days. My son and his friends were of course delighted with this "science in action" demonstration -but were a little disappointed as there were no bangs.

The second burn test took 10 minutes and was a success in all regards. Not only did we get huge smelly smoky jets of burning gases but it went bag at the end of the test due to flash back.

I can hear you say; "this is all very good -but what does it mean?"

The amount of ash from 1 Kilogramme of John Innes No.1 Compost is 257 Grammes.

The amount of combustibles from 1 Kilogramme of John Innes No.1 compost is 569 Grammes.

The amount of volatile combustibles from 1 Kilogrammes of John Innes No.1 Compost is 72 Grammes.

If we convert this to Carbon then the amount of Carbon we have in 1 Kilogramme is 497 Grammes.

Back tracking through the numbers -filling the Latent Heat of Evaporation of the water etc

plus assuming a perfect combustion of the Carbon then 1 Litre of water could be heated from 298K

to steam at 373K by the combustion of 1.63 Kilogrammes of DRY John Innes No.1 Compost.

I cannot believe what I have done!!!

I have actually proved the concept that a G3 loco could actually be powered by Compost.

The tin of syrup can rest in peace in the blue dustbin -it and its contents were very appreciated by all present.

We ate the pudding with ice cream and by special instruction pink sparkly sprinkles and wafers as well.

I have done the chemistry and done the maths that proves it could work.

So -who's going to try?

To quote Dali: "The only difference between a Madman and me -is the fact that I am NOT mad".....